


honey don't feed it, it will come back

by timelxrd



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Humour, Whump, alternative universe, cryptid!thirteen, thasmin, thirteen just wants a friend
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:15:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 31,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28223019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timelxrd/pseuds/timelxrd
Summary: The figure is no longer found upon the flat roof when Yaz next seeks them out.Instead, after scanning the courtyard between side streets and residential housing, Yaz starts at the sight of florid eyes in the opposite corner. Each blink they take casts her in shadow for milliseconds at a time.Talking of shadows; cast against the grubby, graffitied brickwork opposite, the figure bares antlers. Perfectly formed and perfectly striking, the only thing they lack is actual presence. The shape shifts into the light slightly; those horns and stag-like features do not show.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Comments: 53
Kudos: 117





	1. first night

**Author's Note:**

> if you wanna see an EXTREMELY accurate depiction of my baby cryptid!13 in her full glory please check out this insane art by the talented @JForward (on ao3): https://rubicon-art.tumblr.com/post/638221033632088065/so-i-havent-posted-anything-in-a-long-time-im
> 
> hope everyone's staying safe <3 enjoy (if possible !)
> 
> tw for mugging/minor violence (it's pretty brief but be safe anyway!)

_sonya [11:16PM]: let me know when you’re home safe from ur work party loser_

_yazzy [11:17PM]: sure thing no mark_

* * *

Each pool of rainwater gracing the slabs at her feet reflects; disperses and dizzies the gold, blue and silver of streetlights and passing cars. 

Besides herself, the streets on this side of town are quiet. 

Yaz regrets her decision not to layer up more when the cold spikes at her exposed hands and neck in a flurry of tiny electric shocks. 

Her phone withers on its last bars, which, in her slightly intoxicated state, is ample reason to take a shortcut between narrow alleys and side streets. 

With the glowing Crucible at her back, Yaz traipses between dustbins and rusting lamps en route to her flat, momentarily unaware nor uncaring to the echoing footfalls shadowing her lighter ones. 

It’s not rare to find another soul seeking a shorter route home. 

Plucking her phone from her pocket, Yaz utilises the precious life left to inform her sister of her situation. 

She’s halfway through the message when the device packs it in and reverts to a blank screen. Only useful for broadcasting her own grimacing reflection, Yaz moves to tuck her phone into her pocket. 

If only she’d tilted the screen; if only she’d glanced over her shoulder with its aid; then she might have avoided what comes next. 

Pinioning hands envelop her wrist and mouth; grubby fingers capture her cry to displace its volume and reach into the red-brick walls at her sides. The alcohol in her system slows her movements and her assailant’s stubborn hold and height advantage almost tear her retaliation apart at the seams. 

_Almost._

At the same time as a gruff voice growls _“hand it over, gorgeous”_ into her ear, Yaz jerks her head and right foot back. 

Despite her solid shadow’s stumble and gasp, there’s not enough time for her to scamper away before her head meets unyielding brick and an ice-cold sensation engulfs the space behind her closed eyes. 

While Yaz slumps against the wall to find her balance, groping fingers pluck the mobile from her hold and yellowed teeth smirk her way. 

The scruffy bloke is smug in his victory. 

That is until he rounds on her for a second time. 

In a wincing flash, the stranger cries out a low, guttural, pained sound. Dropping Yaz’s phone to the sodden cobbles below in favour of curling his thieving palms over his ears, he doubles over in increasing agony. 

“Turn that _fucking_ thing down,” he growls between clenched teeth which threaten to splinter under the weight. “What the _fuck_?” 

Clueless, Yaz freezes to the spot.

In the corner of her eye, she thinks she spots a flitting mass; the outline of a head peeking over red bricks; black feathers and spread wings.

While the man before her wails, falling to his knees with twin _cracks_ , Yaz glues herself to the wall and whips her head up to spy their solo audience and the reason for his reaction. 

There’s blood seeping from the gaps between his clutching fingers by the time he is released from whatever curse had been doused upon him. 

With staggered breaths, he scrambles from the floor and stumbles a handful of steps away. 

Though she struggles to care, there’s still blood dribbling from his ears and his eyes are blown. 

She’s only human, after all.

“You alright, mate?”

Noticing her composure with incredulous shock, the scrawny man in his mid-thirties shakes his head, spits a mouthful of blood to the ground, and sprints out of the alleyway with no further words. 

Scooping her smashed phone from the crimson-littered paving stone at her feet, Yaz pauses at the sound of heavy wingbeats. 

When she glances up, a set of golden pupils illuminate the otherwise shadowed figure standing atop the roof of the derelict nightclub opposite. 

Three; four; five skittish blinks later, Yaz _laughs_. 

“What the _fuck_? S’this some kind of prank?”

A sleek black feather trembles in the light breeze when the shadow unfurls and shuffles its thick wings. Yaz picks it up from her feet with a pinched brow — the feather is an impressive length and, under the orange glow of a nearby streetlight, she surveys it for craft glue or adhesive tape. 

“Nice trick. Cool costume, too,” Yaz observes aloud. The barbs are silky smooth and dark as an abyss, but the afterfeather is a grey-blonde. They must have dyed it. “This must’ve taken ages to make.”

The figure is no longer found upon the flat roof when Yaz next seeks them out. 

Instead, after scanning the courtyard between side streets and residential housing, Yaz starts at the sight of florid eyes in the opposite corner. Each blink they take casts her in shadow for milliseconds at a time. 

Talking of shadows; cast against the grubby, graffitied brickwork opposite, the figure bares antlers. Perfectly formed and perfectly striking, the only thing they lack is actual presence. The shape shifts into the light slightly; those horns and stag-like features do not show. 

“What’s the weird shadow illusion for? Halloween were a month ago, babe.” 

Yaz steps forward, phone tucked into her pocket. Those glowing oculars tilt. 

She thinks she spots blonde hair from where the person — woman? — is crouched beside overflowing bins. 

“Was it you who hurt that bloke? Did y’interfere with his air pods or spike his drink or somethin’?” Yaz shrugs a shoulder; winces when it aches with the impact of greeting a wall at force. “Thanks for that, by the way. Think you saved me a bit of trouble there. Wouldn’t mind if you taught me that trick, too. There’s so many creeps out there these days.”

The outsider straightens up to her full height — an inch taller than Yaz — and steps into the band of light the ancient streetlamp offers. 

And she’s stunning. 

In the light, her eyes dim. A tailored black suit hugs her figure alongside a slim deep red turtleneck. Her skin is pale but perfect, her jawline a threat to renaissance art. Freckles dust her nose and cheeks and glisten like specs of gold when her mouth twitches. 

Her short blonde hair appears to float slightly; as though embossed in its own static electric field. 

But then— 

At her back, impressively realistic, delicate wings furl together. They’re a chestnut brown, now, but she could’ve sworn they were darker. 

When Yaz glimpses the feather in her hand, her assumptions are correct. “Wait — this isn’t— What? That doesn’t make any sense.” 

The woman’s charcoal brogues remain meticulously clean when she takes a step forward, then another. 

Above, crows begin lining the tiles and sharp edges of the surrounding buildings, cawing like their lives depend on it. 

The blonde’s eyes move with phantom speed. She seeks them out and narrows her perfect eyebrows. 

They fall silent without further adieu. 

“How long’d it take to practice that?” 

Yaz swallows back a sharp inhale when rich pupils return and the woman’s head snaps back in her direction. She tilts it, regarding Yaz in intrigue. 

This close, Yaz acknowledges the way each move the woman makes blurs the air around her, as though the rest of the world is too lax to catch up. 

“Who are you?”

She’s finally asked the correct question, if the stranger’s curling top lip has anything to do with it. She spots the sharp curve of brilliant white teeth; an incisor which is a little _too_ pointed to be entirely consistent with humans. 

Four long strides away, the blonde advances in a predatory style. Her voice drowns out any other sounds within Yaz’s vicinity; a deep, gravelly whisper.

“From empty streets to manmade peaks,

The Gazing Ave does watch and seek.” 

The poem rings a bell; an alarm bell, more specifically. Yaz glues herself to damp brick, eyes wide with realisation. 

That’s a _myth_ ; a conspiracy; an ancient story told beneath blankets at sleepovers to kick adrenaline into action. 

It can’t be real. 

_She_ can’t be real.

“With brandished wings and a deafening shriek, 

She preys on those with souls too weak.”

Yaz thinks back to the way her assailant had clutched at his ears; the _extent_ of his agony and the blood to follow. 

Blonde hair tickles her forehead and Yaz jerks back from the snake-like slits in golden eyes.

A palm flashes across her vision and instead of slamming her head against the wall in further damage, she is cushioned by a readied hand. 

“I am —” 

Breathing sharply through her nose, Yaz clenches her jaw. 

“Holy shit. You’re the Gazing Ave.”

Behind her back, the cryptid creature’s wing twitches. Her gaze flits to Yaz’s temple and her whole face softens. “You’re hurt.”

But when she slips her palm from the crown of Yaz’s head to the space below her eyebrow, Yaz shrugs her off. “It’s fine. Can’t even feel it.”

“The feather in your hand,” the Ave continues stubbornly, stepping away when she seems to reconsider their proximity. She points to the hollow end of the feather. “Break the calamus. It has healing properties.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I — why would I lie?”

Between the Gazing Ave’s knitted brows — one of which has a slit near the tail end — and her open candour, Yaz finds herself believing the stranger. 

Snapping the end off, she raises the open marrow to her temple. “Where is —” 

“Here,” the creature steps forth, slipping the feather from Yaz’s weak grasp and dabbing the tip against a long finger. 

The sap is cold against her superficial wound when the blonde caters to it, every move gentle and practised. There’s no doubt she’s done this before. 

“Gotta be honest, you;re not really livin’ up to what I’ve heard,” Yaz whispers. 

The Ave’s expression shifts as she’s finishing up. Head ducking slightly, her golden eyes dim to a warm amber and the corners of her painted lips twitch south. From so close, Yaz can spot her freckles blinking like stars against her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. 

“You shouldn’t believe everythin’ you hear,” she whispers; like the words have been ingrained onto the back of her throat in constant preparation. 

Yaz response comes out defensive if only to sweep away the saddened lilt to the Gazing Ave’s voice. “I don’t.”

“I know.” 

Yaz blinks, catching warm amber when the woman recedes again. 

The dull throb in her temple has gone. Yaz reaches up to touch her fingers to the once seeping gash but finds smooth, unblemished skin. 

The Ave’s eyes glint with modest satisfaction. She tucks the feather into the depths of the nearest dustbin.

Yaz catches herself before she questions the action; of _course_ she’s hiding it. It’s not exactly your average magpie feather. 

“What do you mean, _you know_?” she asks instead. 

The Gazing Ave brushes something off her wing before letting them fold behind her again. “Because, if you did, you’d have run away the second I appeared.” She pauses, scrunching her stardust freckled nose. “Why aren’t you scared?” 

“Should I be?”

The cryptid tucks a flyaway lock of hair behind a pointed ear decorated in silver. She shrugs a shoulder, but looks disappointed.

Yaz’s eye catches on the sharp feature seconds before a desperate screech sounds from the adjoining alleyway. 

Alert, the other woman turns her head in a blur of movement. 

Yaz thinks she spots her feet leaving the ground in her haste to locate the pained animal. Hot on her heels, she rounds the corner to find a squirming mouse gathered in the Gazing Ave’s ringed hands. 

A black cat darts around the corner and escapes into the night in time for the mouse to slacken and grow limp within her palm, crimson staining white fur.

When the suited blonde raises the rodent to her mouth, Yaz reels back in horrified shock. “ _No_ — what the f—” 

Yaz fights back against nausea climbing up her throat to watch on from a distance in morbid curiosity. Her chest aches with the strength of her racing heart. 

Seemingly ignorant to her reaction, the Gazing Ave lowers her head to breathe golden dust upon the perished creature. A ringed thumb decorated in a circular crest nudges the mouse’s ribs in a gentle coaxing motion and she whispers under her breath in an indecipherable language.

When Yaz dares to listen closer, it sounds like soft hums and wind chimes. 

And — instead of what she’d feared— the blonde breaks into a relieved smile when the mouse appears to miraculously recover from its fatal injury. With a squeak, it rolls onto its four feet and snuffles at her palm. 

“Hiya, mate,” she greets quietly, crouching back down to the sodden ground. Yaz watches her eyes warm in shade once more. “All better.”

While the mouse scurries free between puddles and bins and water pipes rather than meeting its untimely demise, the Gazing Ave turns her way. 

“Um —” she starts shyly, straightening up. Yaz’s heart clenches. “You didn’t think I were going to eat it, did you?”

Kicking a pebble idly forth, Yaz lifts her brows, impressed, when the blonde catches it perfectly beneath her patent toes. 

“You’re like an alien to me, mate,” Yaz admits sheepishly. “I didn’t really know what to expect.”

The Gazing Ave’s shoulders sink and her wings ruffle in hidden frustration. “So are you.”

Taken aback by the guilt she feels at her admission, Yaz offers up an apologetic frown. It earns a tilted head and relaxing features but the Ave still seems defensive. 

Frankly, she doesn’t blame her. It would be hard for her to shake were Yaz in her position. 

“The language y’were speaking, when you were helping the mouse,” she starts as a segue, her intrigue breaking even. “Is that your native tongue?”

The Gazing Ave’s ears prick to attention. Nudging her blazer aside to slip her hand into the pocket of her slacks, she tilts her head to a slightly unnatural degree. 

“You could hear that?”

“Yeah, it sounded — it sounded like music. Why? Weren’t I meant to?” 

“No, it’s just…” the Ave reiterates. “Well, it’s usually only children that can hear it.”

“Children? Why?”

“Because their minds are open — they don’t have a concept of prejudice.”

Again, guilt and shame swirl in her gut. Yaz first heard of the rumours when she was in middle school, and then came the incident during her last years there. 

When she studies the Ave’s appearance once more, a door in the depths of her memories slips ajar. 

“You weren’t scared of me,” the blonde recounts, pulling Yaz from her thoughts. 

“You helped me. Y’rescued me like a proper damsel in distress. I knew y’wouldn’t save me just to hurt me. What would be the point in that?”

The question makes the Gazing Ave pause and think for a moment. Before long, though, she breaks into a small, pleased smile (self-directed, Yaz thinks) and shrugs at her feet like a school kid praised for helping another. 

“Don’t think I ever introduced myself, by the way,” Yaz states when the Ave turns shy. “I’m Yasmin. You can call me Yaz. D’you have a nickname or somethin’? ‘Cause I don’t think either of us want to call you by that stupid poem.”

“Yaz,” the blonde murmurs in wonder, testing the name on her tongue. When she checks it into her memory for safekeeping, Yaz thinks she spots her entire figure glowing in silver hues; as though her excitement is an exterior sensation. Something like electricity sparks from her fingertips and the very tips of her wings. 

At the mention of an alternative title, however, the Ave shakes her head in mild confusion. “A nickname?”

“Yeah, like a shortened version of your name; one you choose for yourself,” Yaz explains. “So, like… Ave, or Ava, or — anything y’like, really.”

When Yaz’s eyes drop to her mouth, she notices not for the first time the layer of dark red painting the perfect flesh (if a little lopsided on the right). The Ave’s pleasant surprise jostles her feathers and warms her ever curious eyes. Her shadow, cast against chipped brick, softens to a fawn. 

“Ava,” she answers finally. With muted surprise, Yaz spots her pulse jumping in her neck. 

Wait — two pulses, side by side. 

Yaz adds it to the list of things about her which shouldn’t make sense but seem to _suit_ her. 

“Thanks for havin’ my back, Ava.” 

Blonde hair draped in stardust tips forward when Ava bows her head in humble modesty, both hands slipping into her pockets and mouth open as if she doesn’t quite know what to say. 

Until a crow caws above as though in warning and, shrinking into herself, Ava’s irises seep back into their former luminous yellow. Rather than commanding, her tone is that of a disappointed request. “You must not tell anyone about this. About me.”

Yaz’s high hopes take a freefall. “I won’t, I promise.”

At the same time as Ava’s wings begin to flex and unravel to their full width between derelict builds and a small green, Yaz takes a stab in the (quite literal) dark. 

“You don’t _have_ to go, d’you?” she prompts, tilting her head. “Like — right now?”

Ava’s confusion spreads to her ears, which twitch back like a shy puppy. “I don’t understand.”

“You saved me back there. The least I could do is get t’know you a bit better.” Yaz nods her head over her shoulder, where the alleyway meets a pathway winding through the local park. “Wouldn’t mind some company, either. I don’t really fancy running into anyone else.”

Pupils softening (as much as they can considering they are serpent-like slits amongst glorious gold), Ava nods. “There’s a route through the park which is usually quiet at this time.”

Trusting her instincts, Yaz allows the stranger to lead the way. 

Through narrow alleyways to lit streets, Ava turns from a bold figure to a shadowy mass and back again. Between slithers of light, the maroon of her suit fades to velvety black alike her cinnamon wings. Even her blonde locks shift, giving way to dirty brown then sleek black.

When a speeding car screeches by, its tires protesting their violent manipulation, Yaz turns her head to find the space beside her unoccupied. Her footfalls pause while she surveys the nearest rooftops, but in the dark her new acquaintance is effortlessly disguised. 

It’s only when the vehicle has disappeared out of sight that the flit of powerful wings greet her ears and Ava reappears again atop the garden wall to her left. 

It surprises Yaz just how quickly the sound has become familiar; a dinghy to a lost swimmer. 

Ava hops down from the wall with an adrenaline-fuelled smile and a quick scan of her luminous pupils. “That was close. Thanks for waiting for me.” 

Yaz’s relief at her return must show if the warmth flooding to Ava’s cheeks is anything to go by when she grins at her. “‘Course. Almost forgot about all that.”

“I don’t usually keep my wings out.” Three steps later, Ava pauses with a thoughtful hum. “Y’know, I should probably just —” 

Long, ringed fingers click, amplified by the quiet nature of their surroundings. Yaz looks at her in question but it’s pointless; her answer comes immediately after. 

At her back, Ava’s glorious wings have disappeared. 

Just about. 

This close, Yaz can see the way the air bends over their shape; like someone’s messed with their opacity. From afar, though, Ava would appear to be just another late night ambler; a businesswoman headed home after a long day. 

Something about it doesn’t feel right, however, and as quick as they had dissipated, Yaz campaigns for their return. 

Noticing Yaz’s torn expression, Ava slips a hand behind her to sweep down an almost invisible primary feather. “It is a filter which alters your perception.”

Yaz tilts her head, walking backwards simply to spy the action. “So they’re still there? I’m just being stopped from seeing them properly?”

“That’s correct, yes.”

“I want to see them again.”

Ava’s forehead creases with the stress of her furrowed brows. “But — are you sure? I just made them go—” 

Yaz nods, eyes wide and pleading. “Please? T’be honest, you look sorta naked without them. I dunno how to explain it.” 

While Ava rolls her shoulders and her foreign additions return, Yaz beams. Her reception is imminent; Ava ducks her head with a muffled giggle. “Yaz, I am _fully_ clothed.” 

“It were a joke, sweetheart,” Yaz teases. 

“Oh.” Ava dodges a passing lamp post with a paradox of elegant clumsiness just as Yaz falls back into step beside her. “Jokes are meant to be funny, no?”

Yaz’s jaw slackens and she pouts in good nature. “Wow. Passive. Alright, I’ll try better next time.” 

Ava’s laughter is melodic. Ahead, the streetlights glow brighter. Yaz thinks it might have something to do with it. 

She grins at the thought of Ava’s unique effect on the environment. Perhaps she’s struck gold and come across an angel from above instead. “What’s so funny?”

“The arrangement of your features in that particular moment.”

“My face? You’re laughin’ at my face, Ava?” 

All at once, that which bore smug amusement flickers out. Beside Yaz, Ava shrinks in on herself slightly, gold eyes downcast. “No! No, definitely not. I’m not rude, I promise. I’m sorry.”

This time, it’s Yaz’s laughter which greets the empty street. 

Puzzled and timid, Ava turns to her with all her being. “You’re laughing.”

“Gotcha.”

“Oh.” Southwards, Ava scans herself. “Do you? In what way?” 

With rolling eyes, Yaz grasps her hand and navigates them briskly past the copper gate and looming birches of the local park. “Come with me.” 

Above, a tawny owl hoots to assert its presence or call for its mate, and between the same branches, bats dart and swerve blindly but expertly. 

Yaz can feel Ava’s eyes on their clasped hands before she looks to confirm it. In an instant, she lets go of her cool fingers and drops her arm back to her side. “Sorry.” 

At her side, Ava raises a pale hand to inspect her palm with piqued curiosity. 

There’s a knit to her brow which Yaz admires when she glances her way in intrigue. “Everything okay?”

“Humans,” she breathes in wonder. “Your gestures are _brilliant._ ”

“Y’say that like you haven’t held anyone’s hand before,” Yaz teases. 

Ava catches her eye with pinkened cheeks. 

“Wait—” 

“Shh,” Ava suddenly interrupts, turning on the spot and appearing to search for something between the trees. 

Just as Yaz twists to follow her eye-line, a fox cub pads off the path to their right, the crisp _crunch_ of dry, fallen leaves its only give-away. 

Ava trades with it an animalistic yawl which tilts the auburn-black of its pointed ears and encourages it towards a nearby chestnut tree. Hidden within a hole in its trunk sits the nutritious nuts and seeds it seeks — obvious in the way the young fox burrows its head inside eagerly. 

When it glances back as if in thanks, Ava’s wings curl inwards in modest acceptance. 

“Can you —” Yaz blinks, three, four, five times, then baulks. “Can you talk to animals?”

While Ava leads the way amidst Yaz’s pause, she shrugs her shoulders. 

“‘Cause you did the same back there, with the crows,” Yaz adds, joining the dots. She jogs to catch up when Ava lets her wings propel her forwards a handful of clumsy steps like a child not quite in control of their speed. “Can you understand what they’re saying?”

Ava’s smile is one of childlike giddiness; like she’s been harbouring a secret her whole life and _finally_ someone has shown some interest. Again, Yaz finds her heart in her throat and beats it down with the stubborn need to seem unphased. 

“Sort of,” Ava replies, just about dodging a rustic lamp post. “I can’t translate it into individual words, but I can get a broad understanding. Enough to respond back if I want to.

You see, most animals and birds rely on gestures and tones of song rather than words to communicate. It’s quite easy to learn when you have all the time in the world to practice.”

“Plus,” Ava continues, nodding to her folded wings. “I’m sort of related.” 

Bewildered, Yaz can only nod her understanding (even though the confession gives her at least thirteen more follow-up questions). 

“Do you mind me asking…” 

“Where I’m from?” Ava finishes for her, hopping up onto the nearest thick oak branch and toeing along its length like a tight-rope. 

“Yeah. Sorry. I’m just curious. You don’t have to answer that if you don’t —”

“Gallifrey.”

Ava leaps and flaps the short journey across to the next tree, forcing Yaz to quicken her steps with a bemused huff. “I’m Gallifreyan, originally, but I have spent most of my life here, on Earth.”

When Ava smoothly swings down from a higher branch of the old birch to land lightly on her booted feet, Yaz watches on in open wonder.

“What made you come here?” Yaz prompts, falling into step beside her winged acquaintance again. “I mean, Earth isn’t anything special, really. I bet there’s way better planets out there.”

“Earth isn’t so bad,” Ava argues, expression suddenly subdued.

Yaz doesn’t pry for her reasoning again. Instead, she eyes the gang of youths loitering at the lake just ahead, jeering and laughing and trading drags from a joint. The smell is overpowering enough to scrunch Ava’s nose, and Yaz watches the slow transformation of her hair, suit and wings to a darker shade once more. 

As soon as they pass close enough to the group, the leaves above Yaz rustle and the shift of feathers suggest Ava’s smooth escape from view. It takes everything in her not to chuckle when a gruff _ow_ comes right after the snap of a branch. 

“How’s your head?” Yaz asks through stifled laughter five minutes later when a pair of feet land tellingly beside her again. 

Ava grumbles, rubbing her temple and smudging the darker shades from her blonde locks. “Stupid tree.”

Above them, the leaves whisper despite a lack of breeze. Ava looks sheepish. “Sorry.”

“Are you — did you just apologise to a tree?” 

“Yes?”

“Right.”

On the next creak of old oak and the brush of lasting pine needles, the creature laughs. 

Yaz’s brows furrow in confusion and she regards Ava as though she’s missed out on a secret. “What’s so funny?”

“The pine just told a joke.” 

“You’re havin’ me on.” Yaz shakes her head. “This is the strangest night of m— Ava, the post!”

With a resounding _clang_ and none of the grace and decorum she’d exhibited thus far, Ava collides with the next light lining the path and stumbles forward with a grunt. 

And while the incident is laughable, Yaz can’t help but close the distance in a flurry. “Are you alright?”

The very instant her hand finds home against a silky chestnut wing, however, Ava straightens up with lightning speed and scarpers out of reach with a gasp which echoes and clouds in the air between them. 

Guilt settles low and heavy in Yaz’s gut in response to the suddenly frightful and alarmed twist to Ava’s features. Her wings shift, curling in and bristling and all but disappearing behind her shoulders. 

All at once, the progress Yaz had made seems to dissipate into the cold air. 

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs sheepishly, averting her gaze to keep Ava from feeling scrutinised or cornered. “I didn’t mean — I should’ve asked before I did that. I just wanted to check y’were alright.”

Ava’s irises evolve. Warm amber looks good on her; Yaz just wishes she knew what it meant. 

“Ava, I promise I didn’t want to hurt you, or — or overstep anything. Are you — your head looks sore. Are you okay?”

Still, Ava appears shocked and timid and ready to take flight any second. 

Yaz’s heart plummets.

Kicking a pebble about between her toes, Yaz ducks her head. “Y’know, when I first saw you back there, I thought y’were some kind of guardian angel, coming to save me. Sounds dumb, I know, but you really did help me out. I were pretty scared, and I don’t scare easily.”

The light around her dims; Ava’s eyes must have softened somewhat in their accusing glow. 

“An angel?” 

Yaz’s gaze flits south; hones in on honeyed pupils; and turns earnest. “Yeah. I know; it’s silly and stereotypical and it — wait — is that offensive? Have I ruined it again? I’m —” 

“Stop apologising.” Ava takes a tentative step forward, like a child chastised but later found to be correct in their assumptions. “You — uh — really thought I was an angel?”

Any confusion slips away when Yaz notices the warm hue of Ava’s pinkened cheeks and the tentative, bashful smile sitting stubbornly upon her painted lips. “Definitely.”

She thinks her wings have begun glowing. Her freckles glisten gold. 

Ava raises her hands to her cheeks and attempts to brush the grin from her lips. 

It’s no use; just coaxes a laugh from Yaz which further cements its presence instead. 

“Now, are you feelin’ okay? Because you don’t seem the steadiest on your feet, if I’m honest, sweetheart.”

Sheepishly, Ava locks her fingers together in front of her and twiddles her thumbs with something akin to embarrassment gracing her body language. “I’m not so used to walking on two feet for long periods of time, so I can become dizzy and clumsy.”

Catching the stone Yaz gently kicks her way, she trades it back for a sympathetic, if bemused smile. Ava flushes red. 

“I should walk more often, but I prefer flying,” she admits, wings twitching pointedly. “And climbing. You should _see_ some of the trees I’ve been to the top of. Scotland is _brilliant_ for their forests. It’s beautiful. And the Alps. I loved the Alps.”

“Can’t say I blame you,” Yaz reassures, eyes wide with the mere thought of sharing those experiences. “I wish _I_ could fly.” 

Ava stops the pebble beneath her booted toes and pauses their lazy game of to-and-fro. “You can, if you like?” 

“Dunno if you know, but I don’t exactly have a pair of badass wings spare, babes.”

“No, I mean —” Ava chuckles, reiterating herself. “You could come with me, for — for a flight?”

Giving herself a once over, then eyeing Ava’s slim form, Yaz curls her lip. “You really think y’could carry me that long?”

Ava laughs, blonde locks swishing. Yaz can’t remember them changing back to their natural colour. “I’m stronger than I look.” Her grin is infectious and fuelled by childlike excitement, as though she’s never even _considered_ the idea before. “Are you up for it? ‘Cause I can’t promise I won’t fall over again if we continue walking.” 

After twisting her lips into a contemplative frown, Yaz is eventually won over by the hopeful gleam introduced to Ava’s ever-changing eyes. She rocks on her toes just a step away, the reddened scuff to her temple the only exception from her perfect features. Somehow, the rugged look still suits her. 

“Okay. I’m in.” 

Ava beams, all brilliant white teeth and perfectly painted lips. “You are?”

“Deffo. Now, how are we going to do this?” 

“Simple.” Ava extends her hands, puppy-eyed and hopeful. “Let me hold you?”

God, Yaz would _kill_ for her to repeat such a gentle request. If only it wouldn’t seem so strange. 

Instead, she steps into the cryptid’s space and allows her to scoop a deceptively strong arm beneath her knees. The other settles modestly around her back and she straightens up with not a single sign of strain. 

“Arms around my neck,” she instructs breezily, adjusting her hold until Yaz is perched more comfortably within her secure grasp. When Yaz maneuvers her hands, however, she bites into her bottom lip and watches closely. “But could you try not to—” 

“I won’t touch them, I promise,” Yaz reassures as gently as possible. Mindful not to disturb her wings, she loops her arms around her neck and braces herself with a bemused laugh. 

“Trust me?”

Yaz can’t tell if it’s a question or a plea. Either way, she gives into her reckless instincts. 

“Yes.”

Effortlessly stealing the focus of Yaz’s attention, Ava’s perfectly groomed wings spread to their full span and beat smoothly into motion. 

“Hold tight,” she whispers in giddy excitement, shoulders bracing and chest rising. “Now would probably not be the best time to inform you that I’ve never held someone in flight before, would it?”

“Ava!” Yaz squeaks, fastening her arms closer around the winged woman’s neck and darting her gaze south. “You’ve _got_ to be kidding me.”

Beneath them, empty air mocks her. When had they left the ground?

“Ava, please tell me you’re joking,” she pleads when, northwards, Ava seems blissfully ignorant. _“Ava_.”

To the rhythm of steady wingbeats and passing metres, Ava breathes a manic laugh. “Yasmin, I was joking.” 

“God, if we weren’t in the air right now…” Yaz mutters under her breath, but then — 

Sidling through a gap in the trees, Yaz gapes upon their dispersal into the night sky. From above the city, she observes the occasional car or taxi drone quietly through the streets; half-drunk students stumbling in jeering groups, littering shreds of kebabs and chips in their wake. 

A bat flits by with an alarmed squawk, beady eyes focused on Ava in a silent communication of… apology?

The tips of Ava’s boots grace the tops of the trees. “High enough?” she asks, her hold maintained with little effort. 

Swallowing her fears, Yaz peers down. “Higher.”

She’s given the correct answer, if Ava’s pleased grin is anything to go by. The rustle of feathers sends Yaz’s hair billowing around her head, but she feasts out on every new perspective of her home city between wrangles of her long locks. 

“This is…” Yaz opens her mouth and chokes through a burst of air to her lungs when Ava catches the current and pitches forward to let herself soar. “Proper, _proper_ insane.” 

“Good insane?”

“Definitely good. Can we go that way?” uneasily, Yaz slips a hand from Ava’s neck to point in the direction of the most populous scene of light pollution; the centre of the city. Just as quick, she curls it back around her neck and braces herself for Ava’s impressive speed. 

“Sure.” 

On the short journey, Yaz glimpses over Ava’s shoulder to eye the distant shroud of trees they emerged from, but her gaze catches and lingers on the smoothly beating wings at her back. 

Each shift in lighting provides another camouflage, and from jet black to dark red to warm chestnut, her silky feathers flourish with change. 

Ava’s throat clearing drags her from her wonderment and encourages her eyes forward again like a child caught with their hand in the biscuit jar. Beneath them sits the ever-moving, ever-living city, alight with gold streetlamps and the red, amber and green of pedestrian crossings. 

Broadcasting itself in white and blue and archaic brick, Yaz spots the police station she’s called a second home for the last three years of her life. “Look; down there. That’s where I work.” 

Straightening her posture and failing not to frown, Ava shifts uncomfortably against her side. “You’re in the police?” 

“Yeah,” Yaz nods. “That’s PC Khan, to you.” 

Ava’s expression is burgeoning on fear when Yaz turns to regard her pause. “Hey. I’m not gonna say anythin’ to anyone or do anythin’ to jeopardize you. I promise you that.”

Slowing her flight path between glassy highrises and telephone cables, Ava gazes out upon the city.

“Ava, look at me.” 

In half a second, she shares Yaz’s weighted gaze. 

“You’re safe,” Yaz promises in earnest. She seeks out the hand spanning her back and wriggles her little finger between. “Pinky promise.” 

Despite Ava’s flushed cheeks and quickly averting gaze, Yaz catches onto the bashful _“thank you”_ she murmurs to the wind. 

Fragile loss of trust averted, Yaz turns back to the passing offices and apartments in open appreciation. Her hand returns to the back of Ava’s neck, fingers brushing the delicate ends of her blonde locks. It’s that she blames for the subtle intake of breath through Ava’s nose. 

The more affluent parts of Sheffield are obvious in their luxury. One such apartment block includes a modern penthouse at its peak, with warm, golden lighting and an open-plan design. Yaz can see as much through its clear glass panes. 

Perched upon the kitchen island, a pretty brunette laughs while a taller, muscular bloke feeds her a spoonful of food from a pan cooking on the hob. Happy with the result, he turns back to his work with a grin. The brunette slips from the top and rounds up behind him to wind her arms around his hips and press her cheek to the space between his shoulder blades. 

Yaz’s cheeks warm, but heat up tenfold when she spots Ava observing the same scene with a thoughtful, plainly yearning frown. 

Soaring lower, Ava swoops mere _centimetres_ below a satellite cable and Yaz’s adrenaline skyrockets. “Oi!”

“What?” Ava’s voice is flooded with the innocence her expression lacks completely. 

“Bit of warnin’ would’ve been nice.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

Above an old-style cafe; the indie kind which charges ten quid just for a coffee, a child gazes out of a perfectly square window. The instant she spots Ava’s soaring wings, her face breaks into one of astonishment. 

Ava waves with the arm crooked around Yaz’s back, white teeth gleaming in an eager, giddy grin. She must look a picture right now; a flawless, winged wanderer of Sheffield’s nighttime streets with a woman caught in her suited arms. 

Baring a breezy smile herself, Yaz settles on observing the way Ava’s smile lingers and her amber eyes flourish to gold with silver specks. Even the cold slit of her pupils seems to soften. 

The curve of her jaw is granted Yaz’s attention next, the sharpness of which could slice fresh lemons cleanly in half. There’s a freckle dusted upon the pale skin where jaw meets neck and if she looks close enough, it appears to be in the shape of a tiny star. 

It would surprise her more if Ava wasn’t already stardust personified. 

Her throat bobs as Ava clears her throat and, caught out, Yaz turns her head quickly back to the scene. The hills and peaks of Sheffield’s rural areas loom over the last of the smaller rows of houses and it’s only then that Yaz realises how long she must’ve spent admiring her new friend. 

The last house on the left stages a bonfire in its unmaintained garden. Two students remain upon ratty camping chairs and Yaz feels rather than sees Ava’s response when they lean in for a tentative first kiss. 

Against her side, Ava’s heart — huh — _hearts —_ quiver like candle flames in front of an open window. 

The faraway gaze in her warm eyes and the colour dousing the tips of her ears silences any teasing remarks readied on Yaz’s tongue. Dropping her head to her chest to take in the solid double beat of her hearts and seek warmth there, she barely registers the quiet gasp from above. 

“Would you like to — ” Ava’s voice is shaky and the organs pumping beneath Yaz’s ear trip over themselves. “Can I show you my favourite lookout? It’s not far, and you’re cold.”

“I’m fine—”

“Yasmin, I have thermographic vision.” 

Yaz head lifts. “Wait — really?” 

The corners of Ava’s mouth twitch. She’s an awful liar. 

“Jokes.” 

“You really need to work on your poker face,” Yaz teases, eyeing the rising hill passing beneath their feet on the way to its peak. At the top, she spies the remains of an old stone-built house. Ava soars gracefully in its direction. 

“I don’t play poker.”

* * *

The ruin is larger, up close. Coupled with intersecting wooden beams, it offers a prime viewing point over the city below. Ava slows her approach when Yaz tightens her hold around her neck, powerful wings easing their efforts.

With little difficulty, Ava lowers Yaz to the top of a rugged but sturdy remaining wall and sinks down beside her. She smoothes out the creases of her shirt and brushes dust from her slacks, then tucks a ruffled lock of hair behind her ear like a nervous child awaiting a school photo. 

It strikes Yaz, then, that this is probably one of Ava’s firsts; sharing her hideaway space with another. Something in her chest constricts. 

“It’s beautiful,” Yaz remarks when Ava quietens, shy and likely dealing with a sense of vulnerability. Yaz knows the feeling well. “D’you come here a lot?”

“It is, isn’t it?” The city before them seems minuscule from this height. It decorates Ava’s open features in gold and red and she basks in it. In contrast, at their backs, darkness overwhelms valleys and hills and lazy streams. “I’m here whenever the sky is clear enough.”

Yaz swings her legs and eyes the ferns and ivy climbing between stones and cement. “On your own?”

Beside her, Ava’s blazer rustles with a shrug. “Of course.”

“Don’t you get lonely—” 

“Yaz, I am the only one of my kind here,” Ava explains plainly, plucking a dandelion from between two mossy bricks and twisting it between her long fingers. “Besides, I’m used to my own company. Just ‘cause I’m alone, it doesn’t mean I’m lonely.” 

Yaz nods, finding her reasoning painfully acceptable. In the same way — in a busy room full of people, one can still fall victim to isolation. Yaz knows that feeling well. 

“Do you have… I don’t know. Mates? Friends you can meet up with?”

Ava’s laugh is bitter but no less amused — the self-deprecating kind. “A nursery rhyme passed around half the population put a quick halt to that.” 

Yaz’s heart squeezes tight and quick around her throat. “I’m sorry.” 

“It’s okay. It’s not your fault.” 

“How do you —” Yaz takes a breath; lets it seep through her nose and cloud in the air before her. “How do you carry on helping people; sticking around; _smiling_ like that, when it feels like everyone’s scared of you?” 

Ava turns her head to catch her gaze, the freckles drowning the bridge of her nose glinting in silver. Her long lashes flutter and Yaz thinks she’s gorgeous for it. “Easy,” she breathes, crimson lips barely moving. “For rare occasions like this.” 

Before Yaz can lay herself bare for her and offer up her soul to those old, insightful eyes, Ava returns her attention to the city with pink cheeks and a flushed neck. 

“Smooth,” Yaz teases, because she can’t force her brain in order enough to think up a better response. The body beside her trembles with muted laughter. 

Perched so far up, however, means it’s that much more breezy. Unconsciously shuffling closer to Ava’s side, Yaz folds her arms across her chest for warmth. 

The stirring of feathers doesn’t greet her ears until one such long, silky membrane finds her shoulder and curves around it slightly. Cocooned within Ava’s wing, welcome heat surrounds her like her own personal radiator. 

But when Ava doesn’t react bar a shy smile directed at the sky, Yaz blames the move on her natural instinct. 

“Thanks,” she mumbles. 

“Should’ve probably brought you somewhere warmer.” 

Yaz shakes her head, observing the strong black spines lining the inside of her wing. “No! No, this is fine. This is nice.” 

A moment of quiet saved only for those admiring a setting sunset or breaking waves or a city awash with light follows sueth. 

Yaz can feel eyes on her when she turns her head to regard the surroundings closer to their hidden spot, finding familiarity in the birch trees and sprawling moor road a short distance away. 

When she tries to track down the memory, however, it remains stubbornly out of reach. 

The wing wrapped around her shoulders nestles closer. “Everything alright?” 

“Yeah,” Yaz breathes. “Yeah, all good.”

“It’s this place, isn’t it? It makes you think.”

“You’re right.” 

Ava tucks the yellow flower she’d been fiddling with thus far into her pocket before straightening up and tilting her head Yaz’s way. 

“Do you have family, Yaz?”

“I’ve got my mum and dad, my nani and my little sister; Sonya. She drives me up the wall,” Yaz divulges, either unaware or ignorant to the way their sides are pressed flush together. Where their thighs meet, Ava’s are firm and slim. She tries not to think about how warm she is. “I’ve got uncles and aunties and a few cousins, too, but we don’t see them very often. At weddings, mostly.” 

“Big family,” Ava notes with childlike intrigue. “Do you still live with them?”

“Nah, I’ve got my own place now. Sonya still comes ‘round sometimes to use it for parties, though.”

“Sisters,” Ava chuckles, “they’re annoying — so I’ve heard.” 

Yaz scoffs. “Sonya’s a bit more than annoying, babe.” 

Wistful, Ava peers down when a raucous echoes up the hill from a street not far from their perch. A group of intoxicated students skip and tumble and cling to each other for stability between out of tune renditions of a familiar _ABBA_ song. 

Yaz can’t help but snicker at the endearingly puzzled look on Ava’s face. Her brows are pinched and her pointed ears are pricked, her lips pressed into a faint frown. 

“Why do they always end up singing?” 

“Heaven knows, sweetheart.” 

“Humans,” Ava mutters in bemusement. “They amaze me.”

“In what way?” Yaz prompts. 

Shaking her head, Ava straightens back up. “They do so much I’ve never experienced myself,” she explains. “I watch them return to their homes after a long day of work. I watch them laugh while they’re making breakfast in the morning; I watch them argue and I watch them make up with each other. I watch them dance and I watch them sing and —” she takes a breath, words heavy with a pining sort of envy. 

“I watch them go on dates and get to know each other. I watch them fall in love; fall out of it. I watch them have children and grow old. And I watch them hug and kiss and hold each other. You’re amazing, you lot. You have your routines and your rituals and your beliefs. I could watch you forever.”

Ava adjusts her poise, fidgeting like she’s revealed too much all at once. 

And it might be the alcohol still circulating in her system or it might just be the obvious way Ava yearns, but there’s one comment which sticks with Yaz. 

“You’ve never kissed anyone before?” 

_God_ , if Ava wasn’t blushing furiously enough already, she is now. Shuffling and squirming and pink all over, she shakes her head. “No.” 

It’s Yaz’s turn to steal herself and embolden this time, adrenaline giving her heart a kick and catching Ava’s attention. Huh. So she can hear her vitals, too. 

Well, if _that_ didn’t give the game away. 

“Would you want to?” 

Ava’s strong jaw falls slack and this time Yaz witnesses, first hand, her pupils warm to amber between blinks. They’re like optical versions of _mood rings_. A light pink tongue grazes her bottom lip for a millisecond before retreating, and her pulse thrums visibly in her neck. 

“You — uh — you mean…” 

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to, it’s alright,” Yaz proffers. “Sorry. I might’ve read things wrong —” 

“No! No — I mean _yes_.” 

“Gettin’ mixed signals here, sweetheart,” chuckles Yaz. By her side, Ava is at war with her inexperience. It shows in the grimace on her face laced with embarrassment. 

“I mean I would want to — uh — kiss. Kiss you. Both of us. Kissing. I want to.” 

Softening, Yaz uncurls the clipped fingernails digging into Ava’s palm and latches on to her pinky. “D’you want to try that one more time? Just remember to breathe.”

“Yes please.” 

“Take it away, Ava.” 

“Would you like to kiss me?”

“Definitely,” Yaz breathes, closing the distance gradually so as not to spook her. “D’you wanna kiss me?”

Already trembling — wings and all, Ava swallows. Her eyes are fixed on Yaz’s mouth. “I really do.”

A palm greets her hot cheek, first. Tiny static pulses lick the surface and curl around her fingers while Ava’s chest begins to heave. 

“Breathe,” Yaz whispers upon the curve of her bottom lip. She tilts her head slightly, foregoing her own nerves to close the remaining distance in a gentle, coaxing pressure; one which encourages cautiously. 

Their lips barely meet before a flash of blue forces Yaz’s eyes closed and sparks akin to an electrical surge jerk her backwards. 

Breathless and frazzled, Ava shoves her glowing hands beneath her thighs and winces in embarrassment. Her baby hairs are faintly vertical. “Sorry. Got too nervous. Wanna — um — wanna try again?” 

Fearing electrocution — which is definitely a first in terms of kissing — Yaz licks her lips and laughs under her breath. “Why don’t you come to me? It might help to give you some more control?” 

“Right. Yes.” Conscious of her extended wing, Ava turns her suited form in Yaz’s direction. Yaz thinks she hears even the roots of her feathers trembling. 

“Hey,” Yaz murmurs, catching skittish, clouded golds. “Breathe.”

Lungs filled with a fresh inhale, Ava dips her head. 

Though fleeting, her kiss is sweet and warm and so very gentle; as though she’s afraid too much pressure might shatter her like glass. 

A hazy second after the first, Ava nudges their noses together and indulges in another. 

Yaz takes the lead Ava offers up so easily, fingertips finding her chin while she deepens her advances. Naturally, she parts her lips to welcome Ava’s shy tongue and swallows her respondent hitch in breath. 

She’s so responsive; every move of her lips and every swipe of her tongue a triumph to be celebrated with a hum or a gasp or a keening purr. 

Ava tastes like ripe cherries, rich chocolate and everything forbidden and sinful Yaz could ever endeavour upon. For fear of falling too deep and sending her sugar levels haywire, Yaz retreats with tingling lips and a thumping pulse. 

“How —” She clears her throat when her voice comes out as a rasp. “How was that?” 

Beside her, Ava’s eyes are still closed and her jaw remains slack. She’s inches off her perch, wings flitting to keep her in the air. At the same time as she blinks her eyes dazedly open and settles back down, she raises her fingers to her lips with slow-spreading giddiness. 

Did she make her lose her balance with just a kiss? “Good, then?”

“I didn’t know it would feel like that,” she surmises, right wing twitching and freckles glinting. She slips her hands free from under her thighs now she knows there’s no risk, but the veins on the back of her palms are still tinged electric blue. “It’s… better. Way better. Wow. Do you feel really warm, too?”

“You’re so cute,” giggles Yaz, but she can’t deny the way her stomach is bursting with frenzied butterflies and every inch of her skin is prickled with goosebumps. 

Ava gazes upon the city with newfound knowledge; as if she’s just found the very key to life on Earth. The compliment makes a pointed ear twitch and her eyes soften. Yaz can see the way her double pulse throbs in her neck in a quick _thudthudthudthud, thudthudthudthud._ “I think this has been the best night ever, and I flew over _thirteen_ mountains in one night once.”

“Thirteen?” Yaz breathes, impressed. “D’you ever run out of energy?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Ava gleams. All at once, she slips from the high wall to sweep up in front of her. Her grin is smug but no less encompassing, even if Yaz has a hand pressed to her chest and her heart in her throat. “There’s too much to see, Yaz.” 

“You really need to stop doing that.”

“I’m stretching my wings!” 

* * *

Night falls into the palms of early morning by the time Yaz halts her questions and Ava satisfies her curiosity (well, _almost_ ). Fighting the heaviness to her eyelids and the tortoise-speed cloudiness of her thoughts, Yaz lets her heavy head come to rest against Ava’s shoulder if only to keep her tumbling from their height. 

“So why didn’t you just — why couldn’t you just fly back home?”

“The escape pod landed here when I was only five. Just over the brow of this hill, actually. I age a lot slower than you lot, so by the time I was old enough to use my wings properly, I’d climatised to Earth’s atmosphere too much. I’d be just like any human. I need a constant supply of oxygen, like you.” 

The body pressed to her side initially stiffens at the contact, but soon unfurls. The wing draped haphazardly over her shoulders draws her closer and, most importantly, brings fresh warmth with it. 

“For some reason, I don’t think they make spacesuits for people with five-foot-long wings. Not that they’d be strong enough, anyway.” 

Downcast, Yaz’s gaze seeps into the seams of Ava’s slacks and her scuffed knee (she’d been trying to show off earlier when a backflip ended in a dizzied collision with the wall beside them). “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

“Thank you. But, honestly, it’s alright. That was a long time ago. Besides, a friendly lady took me in a week— maybe? — after I crashed here. I lived in her attic, where she fed me and kept me safe and healthy until I was fourteen.”

Ava’s chest rises and falls with greater practice, then. 

“When she passed, she left the house to me. I stayed there until people started spotting me — teenagers and students exploring what they thought was the abandoned old house on Bannerman Road. And it was, really. Because according to records, I didn’t exist. Obviously. So the house was vacant and left by a woman named Sarah-Jane who had no family to pass it down to.

I’d try and get them to leave. I’d scare them — turn my filter on and move around, making a racket. One time, they caught me off guard while I was sleeping. I had just enough time to switch my perception off before they could harm me, then I chased them out with as loud a scream as I could manage.

From then on, I’d stay up, watching through the windows and making sure nobody came near. Not because I was scared, but because the house was decaying. It was falling apart. It wasn’t safe. I didn’t want to see anyone hurt. But that’s where the names began. And then the rhyme.” 

“It’s a stupid rhyme,” Yaz mutters, the words bitter and defensive on her tongue. “For the record, I think you’re _proper_ brave.”

“Thank you,” Ava sighs. It sounds a lot like relief. 

Before them, the horizon warms to a hazy orange in preparation for sunrise. Yaz breathes a sigh upon Ava’s crisp blazer. 

“Your heart is slowing,” informs Ava, ears standing to attention. “You’re tired. Would you like to go home?”

“Not really,” Yaz answers, emboldened by fatigue. “But I think I probably should.” 

“Come here. Arms around my neck. Next stop; Yaz’s flat.” 

“You’re adorable.”

“Are you warm enough?”

“Yeah — your face is on fire.”

“I could let you go right here.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“No, I wouldn’t.” 

* * *

Ava touches down on Yaz’s balcony with a soft grunt and a rush of air through her brown afterfeathers. 

After letting the shorter woman find her feet and unlock the sliding door to her bedroom from the outside, she loiters beside the railings like an awkward teen. 

“Wanna come in?” 

Ava shoves her hands into her pockets and shakes her wings free of dust. Doused in the low light illuminated from Yaz’s bedroom, she looks ethereal. She bites her lip. “I should really go.”

Hiding an unusual bout of disappointment, Yaz leans against the door and fingers the handle idly. “You sure?”

“Someone might need help,” Ava murmurs, but Yaz doesn’t miss the way she admires her home like a locked out puppy. “I daren’t risk it.”

The spike of jealousy coiling its hands around Yaz’s gut is ignored in favour of plain and simple admiration. “That’s alright. Maybe another time?”

“Definitely,” Ava replies without hesitation. Her wing ruffles and rounds on her to smack the side of her head and she grumbles out a flustered, “I mean — yes. That’d be great. This isn’t the last you’ll see of me, Yaz.” 

“Better not be.”

“Before I go, though, uh — would you want to —” 

“Have you ever been kissed goodnight?”

“Oh.” Ava blushes red all over. “No. Can’t say I have.”

From the doorway, Yaz extends a hand, fingers wiggling. “C’mere.”

Caught and held, Ava’s fingers slot between her own and she allows Yaz to prompt her forward. Three clumsy steps force their noses to bump together and Ava to inhale sharply through her nose. “Sorry.”

This time, her winged friend doesn’t need encouragement; she takes a steadying inhale and a slow exhale before leaning in to the pull of full lips and granting Yaz her request. 

Dark cherries greet the tip of Yaz’s tongue for the second time that night, and she indulges in it like she’s been starved of taste for years. 

At the same time as Ava’s hand finds her waist, Yaz loops an arm around her neck to draw her closer. She only faintly registers a kerfuffle as Ava’s wings spread without her consent, but luckily there’s nothing for her to disrupt other than an old garden chair. Refocusing on her pouty bottom lip, Yaz grazes her teeth over the surface. 

The hands coiled around Ava’s neck come across something very soft and very, very light but before she can register it, Ava has her backed into the pane of glass separating the outside world to the warmth of her bedroom. 

In tandem with a slow glide of her fingers through soft tufts, Ava downright _purrs_ into her mouth. And it’s so sweet and so breathy that Yaz is forced to pull back just to ensure she’s not melted at her feet. 

When she follows the line of her arms to the feathers she’s sifting through like silk, Yaz’s eyes grow wide and she whips her hands away. “Shit. I didn’t mean to. I’m really sorry.”

Keening at the loss, a dazed, swollen-lipped Ava blinks at her in blissful cluelessness. “Huh?”

“I was —” Ava’s pink cheeks and warm amber eyes cast her bait and Yaz sighs. “You said you didn’t like it when people touched your wings. I’m sorry. I didn’t even realise.”

“Oh, so that’s why—” Is she high? Ava’s pupils are large and dark and her eyes are lidded like she’s catching her breath post— _stoprightthereyaz._ “Hm. It’s okay. That was before I got to know you. It’s alright. They’re just —” 

“Sensitive?” Yaz poses, casting a smug look which burns at Ava’s cheeks. “Sorry anyway. I should’ve checked. You okay?”

“Brilliant,” Ava grins. “I feel _brilliant.”_

“Now be safe out there tonight, alright?” Yaz catches her waist and drops a kiss to her cheek, then dusts down the lapel of her blazer. “Stick to rescuing cats stuck in trees for a bit.”

Ava grins, flexing her feathered accompaniments. “I love cats.” 

“‘Course you do,” Yaz hums. “See you around, Ava.”

“See you _soon_ , Yasmin,” Ava sighs, backing up towards the railings to allow her wings enough space to extend. She hops up onto the railing in a fluid motion, her grin giddy and bright. “Goodnight.”

With callow glee, she falls back, disappears south for a second, then reemerges with flitting wings and a laugh on her lips. 

In barely-quelled infatuation, Yaz watches her sweep in the direction of the city with the wind in her hair and a stone of significant distrust lifted from her shoulders. 

* * *

Between plush sheets later the same night, memories return to Yaz like dreams. Amidst flashes of a thunderstorm on a country road and the sensation of a youthful, heavy heart and a likewise head, she picks out the comfort of tawny-like wings and faintly glowing eyes. 

And between fretful emotions and a dark hopelessness which still lingers on her bones even now, she remembers encouraging words and an attentive presence. 

On a dark moor all those years ago, she remembers Ava scooping up her rain-soaked form and letting her walk numbly the few paces to her family’s front door, then disappearing like a guardian angel in disguise. 

Yaz darts up in bed with a gasp of realisation. 

“It’s _her_.”


	2. lover, please stay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hey!!!!! so this is back bc i couldn't get lil baby ava from my mind <33 hope u enjoy !
> 
> (peep the rating change!)
> 
> tw// gore/whump/mentions of injuries + blood

_“Oh,_ **_shit_ ** _.”_

_“Tom? What’s up? Have you found something?”_

_“Mate, you need to come up here. Right now.”_

_“If this is a prank, or if you’re still tripping from last night, I swear to—”_

_“Shh! Keep your voice down. You’re gonna wake it up.”_

_“Okay, you’re definitely still— waitwhatthefuck?”_

_“Mate, did we just find the Gazin’ Ave?”_

_“Jesus Christ, look how long the feathers are. Y’can’t even see its body.”_

_“D’you think it’s alive?”_

_“I can see it breathing. The wings are moving.”_

_“D’you still have that penknife? Just in case.”_

_“Yeah. Mate, imagine how much those feathers could sell for. Shall I—”_

_“Do it.”_

_“Alright. Get your bat ready. I’ll grab a bunch.”_

* * *

A faint tug at the tip of her right wing is what rouses her first. Drowsy with disturbed sleep, Ava twitches against the unknown pressure and breathes a sigh through her nose. It’s not rare for pesky rodents to seek warmth in her feathers, so she’s not too surprised by the awakening. 

That is until cold metal slices, sharp and sudden, through the bed in which her camuses sit. In a millisecond, she is on high-alert. While crimson seeps between the tufts of her wing, Ava unfurls from her position with glowing eyes and bared teeth. 

Two teenagers, acne-ridden and guilty, stand stock-still and rooted to the spot. 

The taller, broader one of the pair holds a string of lengthy chestnut feathers in his hand. 

Eyeing the strangers, then the derelict surroundings of the house she grew up in, Ava murmurs, “You shouldn’t be here.”

Behind her, she instinctively maximises the size of her shadow. The shorter teen’s jaw slackens in the terror his opposing friend disguises behind a glare. She can hear their hearts; raging _thuds_ betraying any attempt at a facade. 

Ava’s confident step forward is her first mistake. 

Her second is trusting the pair not to lash out in fear like cornered young.

A solid force greets her temple and sends her barrelling into an ancient desk which simply collapses on impact. Another careless sweep of metal through the spines of her wing leaves the boys scampering off with handfuls of her fresh winter plumes. 

Ava listens for the ratty front door to slam closed behind them before gathering herself back up and examining her bloodied afterfeathers. There’s not much left of her primaries, and she chooses _not_ to think about how ineffective the injuries are to her flight habits. Not to mention how painful it will be once her adrenaline has waned. 

Before she can spare a thought to her pounding head, as well, something else makes her nostrils flare and her ears prick. 

Amongst old varnish and must and blood, Ava picks up on the scent of smoke. Fresh, thick smoke. Her ears bristle when a telling crackle slips between the floorboards above. 

The attic. 

Of all the rooms in the near-mansion, they had to destroy that which holds the most sentiment. 

In the alcoves of the bedroom she’d once grown up in, Ava watches fire incinerate handmade clothing and crayon sketches until she can no longer. 

A bucket collecting rainwater beneath a sloped window is quickly dispersed upon the growing flames. Ava bats down what is left of the fire beneath rags and rapid wingbeats, cloth and downy feathers disparaging hot flickers to smouldering ruins. 

Blowing frantically at a singed wingtip, Ava backs out of the room and locks the door behind her not a moment later. There’s only so long she can spend inside the old loft, raging fire be damned. 

Wobbly legs take her to the back entrance of the decaying house before she can think. The mixture of foreign daylight and delayed aches and stings leave her disorientated and drowsy with nowhere to turn. 

Except, perhaps— 

The sound of sirens greets her ears at the same time as her thoughts return oh-so-easily back to a friendly face and safer company. 

“Yaz,” Ava murmurs aloud, wings working on instinct. 

Until they can’t. 

Until a sharp, shooting pain forces her to her knees and her fingers to thread through and clutch at the unmaintained grass beneath her. Like steady droplets of rain, blood seeps down the remaining coverts to drip and pool in the damp earth soaking her navy trousers. 

With a heavy head and heavier wings, Ava slips through the garden gate leading into a narrow alley between houses and winces in the light of midday. Sleep drags at her old bones and makes her stomach grumble with the need for sustenance. 

Everything feels strangely out of rhythm and every passing house becomes another threat. For the first time in years; decades, even, Ava is reminded starkly of her vulnerability. 

She thinks she might be leaving a trail of red polka dots on the pavement behind her; a mystery to the onlooker since her wings have disappeared behind a filter. Her scalp feels warm, too; her hair dampened by something she presumes to be blood. 

Behind a garden trellis passing on her right, a dog barks. Ava almost keels over. 

“Hi,” she breathes timidly to bared teeth and beady eyes which see her just how she is. Her fellow creatures fail to see anything but her monstrous wings and abnormal features. “Sorry, just passing through. Don’t mind me.”

Another bark and a low growl assert the alsatian's disapproval of her presence. While she’d rather stick around to change his mind, the need to find safety is far more important. There’s still another hour or two until sunset, after all. It’s still too light; she is exposed for the taking with every dizzy step. 

Three narrow escapes and a new acquaintance in feline form later (her name is Luna and she is an odd soul, too. Ava promises to keep an eye out for her and especially her favourite fishy treats for the rest of time), she approaches a familiar block of apartments in barely concealed relief. 

The windows of Yaz’s apartment are lit even with the evening sun still out. It sits five storeys up and approximately one hundred and thirteen quick wingbeats away. 

With a rare wave of anxiety through her stomach, Ava slips her blood-spotted navy blazer from her shoulders to use as a makeshift tourniquet. She scans the surroundings for observers before tucking behind the building to wind the material around her dishevelled additional limb. 

The forearm of her white shirt is gripped between sharp teeth when Ava tightens the material around her wound. Her pained whimper is muffled before it has a chance to give her away, as is the gasp she breathes when she attempts flight once more. 

Her toes are barely off the ground when she yearns to stand again, each glide of her wings triple the effort when only one of them is fully capable. Even then, the charred feathers continue to heat and irritate the spines lining her fuller counterpart. 

Five storeys. Just five. 

She can do it, right?

Teeth gritted, Ava grapples for the railing surrounding a first-floor balcony. When two alarmed, aged faces greet her from a busy living room, she curses under her breath and propels herself up with a handful of agonising strokes.

From there, she uses the balconies as her aid if only to keep the strain off her right side. But she’s groggy and she’s slow and her head _pounds_ with each leap, her strongest wing struggling with the effort and knocking her off balance. 

Ava lands on Yaz’s balcony with jelly-legs and screaming lungs but refuses to use her good wing to cushion her fall when she stumbles. Thus, when her elbows and temple scuff the solid floor in smarting grazes which will likely turn to bruises later on, she groans her arrival into the cooling air and slumps in place. 

The racket must capture Yaz’s attention from inside because the sliding door squeaks open within seconds. “Ava?”

Using the last of her energy, Ava turns her head and twitches her decorated ear. 

“ _Ava_.”

Ava’s smile slips and falls into a grimace when her senses finally come back to her in a flood of discomfort. She hasn’t felt pain like it in decades. “Hi, Yasmin.”

“Ava, your wing,” Yaz gasps and instantly she’s at her side, surveying her war wounds and reaching out to touch her vulnerable wing.

It retracts out of reach on instinct, despite how much the angle agonises her. The flash of hurt languishing Yaz’s expression adds to her befuddled confusion. 

So she shrugs, the motion pulling at a strained muscle from her half-climb, half-flying mission up here. “Oh, that thing? Should be fine. I just need some rest. Mind if I kip here for a bit?”

From where she’s crouched beside her breathless form, Yaz folds her arms and shakes her head. “No.” 

Oh. 

Scrambling to a sitting position takes more effort than she’d like. Dust clings to her ruined suit and drifts into the open gashes littering her wing. Neither matter when her hearts plummet at the stony look on Yaz’s face. 

Ah. 

It makes sense, really. Perhaps she was too good to be true, after all. 

“That’s alright. Do you want me to go? I shouldn’t have presumed —” 

“Ava —”

“Sorry. Just need a minute. Head wonk.”

With a steadying hand at Ava’s shoulder, Yaz softens. “No, Ava, I meant you’re coming inside. I’m not leaving you out here in the cold.”

“Oh.”

Ava’s pricked ears hone in on the splash of falling blood at the same time as Yaz’s widened pupils seek it out. With renewed urgency, two warmer hands find her own. “Come on. Are you alright to walk?” 

“‘Course,” Ava breathes through gritted teeth as she finds her feet at last. Yaz’s arm is a solid crutch around her waist when she guides her through the door and into her spacious flat, despite her reluctance. 

Leading on from Yaz's bedroom sits the open living room and kitchen, where a grey sofa captures Ava’s attention the instant they enter. It looks so _soft_. Ava wonders if she’d sink into the cushions entirely was she given permission to settle down. “Wow.”

As if reading her mind, Yaz motions to the plush seat with an amused lilt to her tone. “Go on. Make yourself at home. I’ll — uh. I’ll fetch some towels or something. Are you okay here for a minute? You’re not gonna bleed out on me, are ya?”

“It’s just a scratch, don’t worry.” 

“... Alright. Be right back.” 

Ava eases into the material like she’s not quite sure how to approach it, bracing herself when her wings make it difficult to sit with a straightened spine and undisturbed feathers. 

By the time Yaz returns, she’s still tackling the situation with a knitted brow and blooming discomfort from the heartbeat in her tourniqueted wing. With a frustrated yawl, she nudges the yellow cushions aside and curses her injured addition. 

“You could try your side, if you want to lie down,” Yaz prompts gently from the doorway, a red first aid kit in one hand and a purple towel in the other. “Or your front, t’keep your wings out.” 

Ava blinks. “But you can’t — is there not a rule of etiquette about laying on sofas? I thought they were only for sitting.” 

Yaz’s expression melts into something softer and more indecipherable. It’s a similar look to the one Sarah-Jane used to offer up when Ava muddled up her speech with her native tongue. 

“Not that I know of, babe,” Yaz pads further into the room while Ava _finally_ finds a spot to settle. After kicking her boots off, she eases down on her side and lets her good wing fold beneath her, leaving its matted counterpart to stretch over her shoulder and into Yaz’s inspecting view. 

After settling her medical aids and a washing up bowl full of steaming water down on the floor beside the sofa, Yaz reaches out tentatively. “D’you mind if I take a look?”

Instinctively, Ava flinches her pitiful wing out of Yaz’s reach, but the mere motion makes her hiss through white teeth and draw her second wing closer to her body. 

“If you don’t want me to, that’s okay—” 

Ava bites the inside of her cheek. “Please be gentle.” 

“Of course,” Yaz emphasises, sincerity soaring to the forefront of her brown pupils. Her mouth twitches and Ava follows the movement to witness a comforting smile take residence over her lips. Her hair has been drawn up into a loose bun, Ava notes, and it frames her naturally pretty features in a dreamlike fashion. 

For a moment, the pain ebbs to nothing. How peculiar.

How _interesting._

“I promise,” murmurs Yaz, soaking a purple cloth in the hot water and dragging Ava back to the situation at hand. “How did you even get into this state? What happened?” 

While Yaz leans up on her knees to peer between bloodied feathers for the main source; two lines of torn skin and muscle gracing the upper section, Ava snuffles at the charred tips of her less damaged fringes. “Scared kids. It wasn’t their fault.” 

“Kids did this to you?” Yaz breathes, double-checking before she rinses out the cloth and glides it along the feathers just below her ruptured wound. Ava suppresses a gasp but can’t hide the way her teeth chatter. Yaz’s pulse flits and her touch lightens. “Ava, why?”

Through gritted teeth, Ava assists in untying the ruined blazer from her wing. “They got to me while I was sleeping. I scared them, and they acted out of fear.” She resettles under Yaz’s tender touch when her mild headache and disturbed sleep catches slowly up with her. “I should have been more careful.” 

“It’s not your fault,” Yaz murmurs under her breath, failing to conceal the frustration painting her tone. “They had no right to hurt you.”

“They wanted to sell my feathers,” Ava offers, unsure whether the statement is in their defence or not. “Maybe they needed money for food? Or rent? You never know, Yasmin.” 

“Christ, Ava,” Yaz mutters, shaking her head. When she swills the cloth in the basin, the water turns dirty red. Whatever she was going to say next dies on her tongue when she meets Ava’s gaze. “Wait, you’re being genuine, aren’t you?”

Ava’s brow furrows. “Of course.”

The small towel pauses midway to its destination, drips hot water onto Yaz’s burgundy joggers, and Yaz barely flinches. “You’re so rare.”

Ava’s left heart trembles within the grasp of arteries and veins and muscle. Her right follows in its wake a second later. Her cheeks warm and her ears twitch and her gaze darts to the mouth which formed such a comment. 

“That’s good, right?”

Yaz’s lips twitch when she nods, blinking back to her task. “Ava, is there — uh, how do you usually treat this kind of wound? I can wash it in antiseptic, but — would the calamus liquid work? Like last time?”

“The sap only works on minor scrapes,” Ava answers, adjusting her position to eye the weeping gash in all its glory. The surrounding feathers have been cleaned, but dust and dirt and dry blood still clings to the edges of the exposed muscle. “It won’t work on its own. Do you have any coconut oil?” 

“Coconut oil?” Yaz repeats, gaze darting to the adjoining kitchen. “I think I might. Stay right there.” 

“It speeds up the healing process. And it’ll replace the oil I’ve lost,” Ava reels off before returning her attention to her unaided wing. She ducks her head to lap at the pink, scolded spines beneath her singed feathers with her tongue until it grows pleasantly numb. The pitiful looking tufts should loosen and fall free in the coming days, leaving fresher, thicker plumes in their wake. 

She only curses the time of year. The thickness of her coat means she sheds less regularly, so it takes that much longer for new feathers to replace those lost. 

There’s a tear gracing the forearm of her shirt and she rolls the remaining fabric to her elbow before repeating her attentive reparation to grazed skin under the tip of her velvet tongue. 

“ _Ava_ , what the—” 

“Antibiotical glands,” she divulges as she pulls away, her gash but a splash of pink on her pale skin. “I have them on my tongue.” 

With a bowl and a glass bottle of oil in hand, Yaz blinks at her from the end of the couch. “So you’re just a walkin’, talkin’ remedy, huh?” 

“It has come in handy in the past, I’ll admit — wait.” Ava’s cheeks flush when Yaz smirks right at her; through her eyes and into her waiting soul. “Was that a flirt?”

“It’s flirt _ing,_ sweetheart, and you’re getting there, yeah. Now,” Yaz perches on the edge of the sofa beside Ava’s curled up legs. “This is gonna hurt, but I’ll be as gentle as I can. D’you trust me?”

Ava thinks over the last few months; of every single act of compassion Yaz has offered up without the pressure of a return favour nor a moment’s hesitation, and nods. 

“I need to hear y’say it, sweetheart.” 

Reaching for her ruined blazer, Ava winds the material around her fist, turns her head away, and clenches her jaw in preparation to bite down. “I trust you.”

In time with a shaky breath from Yaz’s lungs, Ava jerks with the first introduction of the sticky substance to her naked flesh. 

The cushioned fabric of Yaz’s couch is a soft contrast against her cheek when Ava whimpers into the join of the armrest, teeth latching onto the soft polyester of her jacket and eyes squeezing shut. 

A comforting hand finds Ava’s shoulder and squeezes. “Sorry. I’m tryin’ to be as careful as I can.”

“It’s okay.”

“Just tell me if it gets too much, alright?” 

Water trickles in a slow stream from her feathers to the rust rug below when Yaz dabs at a section littered with dust and crud. A similar river builds in the corners of Ava’s eyes with each sting and burn of healing coconut oil. 

Where the metal had made its deepest slice, Yaz takes care to apply droplets of the silky oil in smaller instalments so Ava can refill her lungs between each treatment. 

But it still _sears_ at her nerves and along to the join between her shoulder blades, forcing her free hand to scrabble at the edge of the sofa and grip while trembles greet her nerves and she shivers involuntarily. A pitiful yawl meets the room when Yaz misjudges the edge of her wound and disturbs the cooling flesh, but a louder, more primal growl of discontent readies itself in her throat the closer she gets to the sensitive centre.

“Sorry,” Yaz mutters quickly, guilt and worry loud in her skittish tone. 

Despite the swelling contentment she gains when Yaz’s unoccupied fingers glide through her afterfeathers in a soothing caress, Ava jumps at the initial contact. 

She hears Yaz curse under her breath a mere second before a fresh trickle of crimson stains her shirt and a scalding sensation spreads rapidly from the centre of her messy laceration. 

The animalistic howl laying dormant at the base of her tongue unchains itself and breaks free. 

At the same time as Yaz presses a sopping washcloth to the freshly bleeding cut, the mirror set above the artificial fireplace fissures cleanly through the middle and glass rains upon the floor below. The lights above flicker and Ava’s eyes bleed silver tears. 

“ _Shit_ ,” Yaz breathes, jaw slackening in alarm when she locates the source of the crash. 

Ava stiffens, blinking her vision clear and taking in the damage. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—” 

“It doesn’t matter,” Yaz breathes. “It’s okay. I never really liked that mirror anyway.” 

“I can fix it.” She takes a steadying breath and holds it while Yaz finishes up with efficient hands and pinched brows. “I swear I’ll fix it.” 

“Ava, relax. It’s alright. Are _you_ okay?”

Wiping her cheeks in mild alarm at their state, Ava peers over her shoulder to survey the coconut oil coating the majority of her wing. Her heightened sense of smell protests, but she can tell Yaz hasn’t spared a millimetre in her thorough treatment. “I will be. Thank you.” 

“Y’gave me a bit of a scare back there, I gotta admit,” Yaz admits, tossing Ava’s hearts to the wolves and letting them feast. 

“I’m sorry.” Ava drops her head to the armrest when Yaz glimpses the dried crimson painting her scalp and dirtying her blonde hair, silently allowing her to maneuver around to Ava’s side to check over the artificial cut. From this close, she can smell the wisps of vanilla clinging to her skin. Her neck, in particular. 

Ava watches the way it bobs with a heavy swallow while Yaz gently cleans her grazed skin. 

“I didn’t know where else to go. Should I not have —” 

“That’s not what I mean, babe,” Yaz interjects, using a lukewarm cloth to wipe away the remaining blood. Ava hisses when she then applies a handful of droplets of antiseptic liquid to the fresh graze. “You can always come here. I just wasn’t expecting —” she pauses, trawling her thoughts. “I just didn’t think this would happen. Not to you.”

“Not to me?” Ava prompts, relaxing under Yaz’s careful aid. Her wing has settled, and if she avoids jostling her plumage the pain is subdued. Coconut oil seeps into her system and acts like a fatigue-inducing painkiller, leaving her drowsy and languid. 

“I literally can’t think of one reason you deserve t’be hurt like this,” answers Yaz. “If I knew who those kids were, I swear, I’d—” 

“Yasmin,” Ava sighs, warmed to the core as she might be. “I don’t stand for that. You know I don’t.” 

“I’m just sayin’, if I were on patrol this evening, they wouldn’t have got away with it so easily.” 

“I know.”

“You — know?”

“Yaz, your heart is racing,” Ava divulges, blinking her eyes open just to level them with the form knelt before her. “I _know_ you’re feeling strongly about it. And it’s okay.” 

Her wing twinges with lack of use. “Maybe I should be less forgiving.”

“You don’t have to. Just be careful, okay?” Yaz requests. Seemingly satisfied with the graze on her scalp, she drops the cloth into the red-stained bowl and eases back onto her heels. 

Ava’s sure nod is slower than she’d like, grogginess wearing at her reactions and leaving her eyelids heavy. 

“You look exhausted,” Yaz notes softly; even the tone of her voice works to soothe her pounding head and assist her drooping eyes. Ava gives into their pull a second before foreign fingers nudge aside a lock of her hair and her skin warms up another whole degree in their wake. “Get some rest.” 

“I shouldn’t —” Ava fights back, then gives in again. Her eyelids are so _heavy_. “I shouldn’t intrude.” 

“Sweetheart, you’re seconds from passing out.” She hears a shuffle as Yaz moves to stand and gather her supplies up. “Just relax. I’ll still be here when you wake up.”

“Comfy sofa,” Ava sighs, nestling into the join of the armrest. Her weakened wing extends over her shoulder and partially hides her face from the room, and even the accompanying pull of torn skin can’t drive the anaesthetic from her system. “Thanks, Yaz.”

An amused _“don’t mention it, babe”_ greets the room mere moments before Ava slips through the net into a hazy dream, although it’s hard to tell the difference at this point in time. 

One major contrast assuages her confusion right away. 

_In her dreamscape, Ava soars high above the glowing city with Yaz at her side. Gracing Yaz’s back are the darkest, silkiest, richest feathers she’s ever seen._

_Ava forgets how to breathe; her delicate lungs lose their memory and grapple with her racing hearts. When Yaz smirks, taking the opportunity to speed ahead between glass offices and neon-lit bars, she leaves Ava behind in a gust of wind and awe._

_“Race you to the Eiffel tower?” Yaz calls back to her in challenge._

_Ava dives to catch up. “You know I’m going to win. You’ve only just grown into your wings.”_

_If_ **_only_ **. 

_Yaz sweeps in to cup her cheek, soothing the pad of her thumb along Ava’s cheekbone and drawing heat to the surface. “And_ **_you_ ** _are showing your age,” she purrs. “Scared you won’t be able to keep up?”_

_“Scared I’ll leave you behind, more like,” Ava quips in return, each word landing atop Yaz’s smirking bottom lip. She loops an arm around her waist. “Are you sure you could take me?”_

_“Oh, babe.” Yaz swipes her tongue in a quick flit along Ava’s bottom lip. “I’ve never been surer.”_

_A pleasant shiver coaxes a rumble to her throat and blue sparks to her fingertips when Ava chases Yaz’s mouth for somewhere to train her thirst._

_At the same time as she grants herself an increment of Yaz’s natural flavour, her counterpart turns to nothing between her fingers._

_Ava blinks her hooded eyes open and narrows her field of vision. “Yaz?”_

_Suspecting boisterous teasing, Ava turns on the spot to seek her out. Up. Down. Around. “You know, if you’ve got your filter on, I can still see—”_

_Up. Down. Down._

_“Wait, that’s —”_

_Metres below and increasing, Yaz plummets to the ground. A red-feathered needle is embedded in her wing._

_A_ **_sedative_ ** _?_

_“_ **_Yaz_ ** _!”_

_Ava’s arms desperately extend and she dives. She dives harder than ever before._

_Ava dives, and Yaz falls._

_At every reach, Yaz inches further from her._

_Realistically, she’d have caught her right away._

_Dreams are cruel like that._

_The roof of a highrise races towards Yaz’s limp form._

_Ava closes her eyes._

_Pinches the corner of a soft blouse._

_Feels it slip between her fingers._

_And_ **_howls_ ** _._

Yaz’s living room is darker when Ava jerks awake to a palm pressed against her shoulder and alarmed brown eyes boring into her own. 

Spotting streaks of silver in the corner of her vision, Ava rapidly wipes her cheeks with her knuckles while her chest continues to heave. She blinks away the remnants of her nightmare under Yaz’s watchful gaze. 

“Are you alright?” Yaz broaches timidly, eyeing the silver tears smudged between Ava’s fingers. She reaches for a cardboard box on the coffee table and offers it up with a patient smile. 

To Ava’s clueless observation, Yaz plucks a piece of tissue paper free and leans up to dab at her colourfully dampened cheeks. 

“Oh,” Ava breathes when the scent of vanilla fills her nose and Yaz’s tender ministrations colour her cheeks pink. Mind distracted, she averts her gaze to the sleeve of Yaz’s orange jumper and her working fingers. 

When that doesn’t help, either, she bites her lip and refocuses on the suddenly extremely interesting ceiling. “Bad dream, that’s all. Sorry. I didn’t know it was going to happen.”

“It’s okay. You can’t control these things,” Yaz murmurs, smoothing across the silvered skin just under Ava’s blinking eye. She pauses just as Ava sighs through her nose and unconsciously leans into her touch. “Wait — you can’t, can you?”

“Not really,” Ava replies after a moment’s pause. Yaz’s touch lingers against her cheekbone and when she glimpses south, she thinks her eyes are following her cupid’s bow to her twitching top lip. “I can usually tell when I’m dreaming, though. But sometimes — sometimes it takes me by surprise.” 

“You were sayin’ my name,'' Yaz divulges, driving daggers into Ava’s main arteries and bleeding her dry. Ava takes it like a born survivor. “In your sleep. You kept saying it.” 

Ducking her head despite how much she mourns Yaz’s resultant loss of contact, Ava snuffles at the healing burn between her feathers where she can safely hide. Her tongue darts out and gives it a soothing lick, for good measure. She feels Yaz’s curious eyes on her the entire time. “I— it wasn’t the best of dreams, Yasmin.” 

“Right — yeah, sorry. You don’t have to talk about it.”

“Thank you.”

Loitering with poorly quelled worry, Yaz crumples the tissue into a ball and straightens up to stand. “You were out like a light for the whole afternoon, and I was just starting to make dinner. Are you hungry?” 

With Yaz at an increased distance, Ava picks up on the newer smells to the room. Turmeric greets her senses in a powerful flood, and her stomach has something to say about it, too. Flushing to her toes when it grumbles, Ava nods. “I’m starvin’. Are you sure, though? I don’t want to take —”

“Sweetheart, if you end that sentence with the word _advantage_ , I might have to deny you your favourite hot chocolate later.”

Oh. Hm. That really would be a shame. Ava frowns with all her face, hoping against hope that Yaz is teasing. 

A month earlier, when fresh snow had chilled her to the bone and she’d taken cover on Yaz’s balcony for the night, Yaz had presented her with the sugary hot drink under the pretence her system could deal with so much sugar and sweetness in one go. 

As such, Yaz had since rationed her offerings. 

“Don’t worry, I were only joking,” Yaz chuckles, tapping Ava’s knee on her way back to the adjoining kitchen. “I’ve got a fresh tub just for you.” 

The pressure on her knee lingers even through the material of her trousers. Ava daren’t adjust her position for fear of uprooting the sensation. 

Thankfully, from her location on the couch, she can observe Yaz at the stove without having to move. It’s comforting in a way she doesn’t quite understand yet. 

Perhaps she just doesn’t like being left alone anymore. 

But then why would she, when Yaz is _right there_?

Then again, perhaps she should’ve plucked some yellow orchids from the Norweigan fjords on her last fleeting visit. Perhaps then she’d have something to offer Yaz in return.

For now, though, all she can do is offer a grateful, dopey grin each time Yaz glances her way — which is a _lot_. She probably shouldn’t be so pleased about that. Something (or maybe two) in her chest constricts with each flit of kind brown eyes. 

Feebly, Ava lifts herself onto her elbow and tucks a flyaway lock of hair behind a pointed ear. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Honestly, it’s a pretty easy recipe, so I really should be okay. You can put the television on, if you’d like?”

“I can watch TV? Amazin’. Thanks, Yaz. I always liked watching TV.” 

“Did — uh —” Yaz lowers a slice of pinkish meat onto the pan and it sizzles instantly, making Ava’s ear twitch. “Did Sara-Jane let you watch it a lot when y’were a kid?” 

“It’s how she educated me,” Ava admits, pressing the big red button at the top of the remote control and watching the screen come to light. It’s hard to focus on one sound at a time and she’ll probably get a headache soon enough, but the moving pictures are no less engrossing for the time being. “As well as books, obviously. But it’s how I learnt — about humans, nature, the Earth, space, _birds_.” 

Ava scratches the back of her neck and wills her face to cool down. “Yaz, the first time I saw a bird, I think I cried with relief. Sarah-Jane let me out to see them, sometimes. I’d be out there for _hours_ , trying to learn their calls.”

“Oh, my _God_. I didn’t even think about that,” admits Yaz, letting the whitening meat cook so she can give Ava her full attention. “That must’ve been pretty overwhelming, right? To see something that looked a lot more like you than other humans?” 

Turning away from the screen to pluck a delicate locket free from beneath her shirt, Ava toys with it between her thumb and forefinger. “It was a huge step for me. I didn’t feel so alone, anymore. ‘Cause Sarah-Jane was brilliant. She was like a parent to me, but she wasn’t _like_ _me_. No one was. No one _is_. But at least I’m not completely different, either.” 

“Of course,” Yaz supplies, tilting her head in unspoken admiration. She motions to the pendant around her neck. “Is that hers?”

“She gave it to me before she passed.” Ava sits up, stretching her wing over the back of the sofa with a wince Yaz frowns at. Clicking open the locket, she plucks free a tiny fluffy white feather. And lifts it into Yaz’s line of sight. “This was one of the first feathers I shed here on Earth.” 

Yaz is entranced. Stepping around the breakfast bar, she reaches out to grace the soft plume. “Wow. It’s like it’s glowin’.” 

“It is,” Ava confirms, allowing Yaz to handle the delicate feather. “Young Gallifreyans aren’t able to regulate their energy as much as adults. That’s why our skin and our feathers glow. When you reach adulthood, it’s easier to control it, but there’s still some physical evidence.” 

After Yaz returns the weightless component to Ava’s open locket, her softened gaze flits to the specs of gold dusting Ava’s nose and cheeks. “Is that why you have such pretty freckles?”

Ava is grateful she’s busied with the task of re-clasping her locket when the compliment finds her excellent hearing and turns gold to blushing pink. Her lips part and twitch and bare no words by the time she glances back up to seek out amusement or dishonesty in Yaz’s expression. 

“You don’t think they’re strange?” she finally poses. 

“Not on you.” Yaz replies instantaneously. She touches two fingers to Ava’s trembling jaw and Ava sighs, as ever, at the tender contact. She melts into their pressure when Yaz brings them up to her cheek, then graces her ever-changing freckles with her thumb. “You’re really somethin’, Ava.” 

A hard swallow forces Yaz’s gaze south, leaving Ava to admire her features up close without witness. And admire she does; from the scar indenting Yaz’s forehead to the dip between her brows, Ava follows the slope of her features until she comes home to the fullness of her lips. 

“Right back at you,” she whispers breathlessly in return, watching a pearly white tooth sink into Yaz’s bottom lip. Oh, to be so lucky. “Yaz, could I—” 

The very second Yaz tips forward to nudge their noses together and Ava’s fingertips tremble with blue-white flares, the meat cooking away on the stove sizzles its discontent. 

Ava would aim and scold the pesky food with her eyes alone if she weren’t so hungry. 

“Sorry, babe,” Yaz offers apologetically as she slips away to return to the kitchen.

Ava is too dazed to do anything but watch on, fighting a losing battle against the flutter of foreign wings in her stomach and the cluttered, dizzying state of her thoughts. 

In all her years of admiring and observing human relations, she’d never witnessed the hazy after-effects of close contact. With every moment spent in Yaz’s company, however, she’s learning of its addictive nature. 

“I can feel you starin’,” Yaz voices over the murmur of the television. Ava had forgotten all about it. 

Flustered, she averts her attention to the screen. The programme broadcasts a young lion cub and its mother, lounging in the sun. “Sorry.” 

“I weren’t complaining.” 

Well, there goes her focus.

Ava thinks her ears are burning to a crisp. She breathes a trembling, “Oh” and turns to a puddle on the floor when Yaz snickers in turn. 

A short time later, a brand new scent barrages past her nose and makes her stomach grumble with a passion. Ava turns to regard Yaz’s occupied form with pinched brows and burning nostrils. 

“You okay?” Yaz queries, sensing eyes on her as she heads over with two plates and a bowl in hand. 

“New smells.” Ava squints. “They can be overpowering.”

“Oh. Should I — do you want me to open a window?”

“No! No, stay. Sit. This looks amazin’. I can’t believe you cooked for me.”

“Ava, this is nothing,” Yaz chuckles, easing into the space beside her. “Seriously. My mum’s always tellin’ me to learn more recipes, but I always come back to Karahi.” 

“Karahi?” 

“It’s a Pakistani dish my Nani taught me. The name actually comes from the pot it’s cooked in,” Yaz informs, nodding her head towards the stove. “If you like it, there’s some left.”

In the bowl Yaz sets on the coffee table, thick slices of speckled bread take residence. Ava finds her head tilting with curiosity when her counterpart plucks one up, tears a piece off, and swipes it through the orange sauce drowning rice and chicken. 

When her stomach growls its impatience, Ava copies Yaz’s actions to every detail. Her first bite is _heavenly._ Her next is even better. “Yasmin, this is delicious.”

“Yeah?” Yaz hums through a mouthful. “Thanks. Better take it easy, though. There’s quite a bit of chilli in there.” 

“Chilli? What’s —” Ava pauses mid-swallow and coughs. She thinks there may be steam pouring out of her ears and her tongue _burns_ like nothing else. “ _Whoa_. What’s that? Yaz, why is my mouth on fire?”

“Yep. That’s the chilli.”

* * *

“I can’t believe you tried to kill me.”

“Ava, you turned bright red, started sweating, told me you thought y’were gonna pass out, then asked for second helpings.”

“You should’ve stopped me!”

“I—” 

“Do you have anything cold?”

“Milk?”

“Will it kill me?”

“Nope.”

“I’ll take it.” 

Rolling her eyes but laughing, Yaz pulls open the fridge door and fishes out a bottle. Ava doesn’t wait for her to find a glass before twisting the cap and taking a desperate glug. 

And oh, it is _glorious_. Ava’s wings twitch and pain shoots to her muscles but she doesn’t have time to react when her tongue cries its relief. 

Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand only once she’s satisfied, Ava passes the bottle back to a bemused Yaz. 

“Better?” Yaz asks. 

Swallowing the last remnants down and taking a breath, Ava grins. “Better.”

“Good. Now sit down somewhere. I don’t want you strainin’ your wing with so much jumping around.” 

The kitchen counter acts as a suitable seat when Ava hops up. She eyes the fridge when Yaz returns the bottle to its rightful place, brows lifting at the variety of colours on display.

So much so, Ava doesn’t spot Yaz turning back towards her with a watchful eye. “Still hungry?”

“I don’t know. Maybe?” Ava thinks aloud, feet swinging beneath her. “I’ve never seen so much food in my life.” 

“Well — what do you usually like to eat?”

Ava pauses to let her mind wander. Sometimes her winged friends will bring her back something from their hunt for food; a loaf of bread, sometimes cooling slices of leftover pizza. 

On one occasion, she’d lurked behind a sweet-smelling cafe for so long that an employee had left her a package of bottled water and pre-made sandwiches. She’d feasted out on them for weeks and left a gracious note behind, accompanied with a rich green jewel she’d found on a flying visit to Brazil.

The employee; a dark-skinned woman with untamed curls and bright fashion sense, had left her job a week later amidst whispered conversations with her colleagues about a perfect emerald, affording her more than enough money to seek new opportunities. 

“I mostly scavenge,” Ava divulges, tucking her hands under her thighs. “So I get by on bread and water.”

“Bread and —” Yaz freezes, face falling. Ava doesn’t like the way a frown sits on her pretty mouth. “Why didn’t you say that before?”

“Say what?” 

“Ava,” starts Yaz, coming to a stop just before her swinging legs. She stays them with a single hand on her knee. “We’ve been hangin’ out for _months_ . I could’ve gotten you some food. I could’ve cooked for you, _before_ now. You should’ve said something.” 

Ava’s brows pinch at the same time as her hearts take a tumble to her throat. Confusion gives way to guilt, then seeps back into confusion again. 

“I don’t think I understand.”

“ _Ava_ —” 

“Why would you do that for me?” 

“For the same reason you’re always helping people, babe,” Yaz sighs. “Because I care.”

To Ava’s unfaltering puzzlement, Yaz slips free one of Ava’s hands and lifts it to rest against an unblemished cheek. “About _you_ , Ava. I care about you.” 

Her skin is so soft; so pliant, it melts under the pads of Ava’s fingers and radiates warmth Ava so primally seeks. She can’t help the spark which fizzles out against the table from her free hand. 

Reduced to a mouth which opens and closes like an overexerted fish and ears which burn with colour, Ava can only wordlessly bow her head. 

It just so happens that the action also draws their foreheads together. 

Coincidences, huh?

Ava thinks her pupils might have warmed to deep amber, for it sets Yaz’s already glowing skin ablaze. When her gaze dips, Yaz’s lips appear that much more divine.

“Thank you,” Ava breathes upon a plump bottom lip, not for the first time this night. Her shoulder smarts when her wing twitches with the need to enshroud them and gather Yaz up between torn feathers. 

She can hear Yaz’s heart racing in her neck. With great effort, Ava meets her blown pupils in silent questioning.

Yaz can’t nod fast enough. 

As easily as taking flight, Ava draws Yaz in with the promise of a tentative kiss. A kiss which grows firm upon Yaz’s curious tongue and likewise hands, which settle snugly around the back of Ava’s neck. 

When the chilli sauce still clinging to Yaz’s lips doesn’t dissuade her, Ava goes for gold. With slow hands, she draws Yaz closer until she stands snug between her parted knees, then licks into her mouth with a hot tongue. 

Yaz’s fingers slip and thread through the hair at the back of Ava’s neck and a keen hum melts against her lips, forcing Ava to squeeze her hips just to keep herself tethered to the countertop. 

The tang of rich spices mixed with something darker and more sordid coats Ava’s tongue when it sweeps alongside Yaz’s own. When her taste buds cry out for more, she deepens the kiss at the same time as her cool fingers seek warmer skin and the curve of Yaz’s waist. 

Her wings shudder and pain tugs at the back of her shoulders in a stubborn protest. Ava’s resultant gasp forces their lips to part and Yaz’s eyes to widen in hazy concern. 

“Too much?” Yaz croaks, panting softly upon her tingling lips. “D’you wanna stop?”

Mere millimetres separate their open mouths. If Ava were to look down, she’d find their bodies still slotted perfectly together; snug and intimate and far too distracting. “No. Just — uh,” Ava swallows, takes a breath, and sighs it out when Yaz presses a kiss to the corner of her lips. “Can’t keep ‘em still. My wings. I can’t —”

Ava’s toes curl in empty air when Yaz feeds her fingers through the feathers of her unharmed wing, finding the join at her back and sifting through soft tufts. It’s so tentative; so careful and gentle, Ava can’t help but sag against her with a low moan. 

And then she freezes, because Yaz’s breath catches in her throat and did she just — 

“Sorry,” Ava gulps. “They’re — um — they’re sensitive.” 

“You really, _really_ don’t need to apologise for that.” 

Licking her lips and blinking hooded eyes up at her, Ava remains oblivious to Yaz’s next move until her head ducks and a hot mouth seeks out the racing pulse in her neck. 

_“Oh_ ,” Ava breathes when her vocabulary reduces to just that. 

The first press of lips against her throat makes Ava tremble and arch into her, thighs squeezing Yaz’s hips and her head tipping back. She turns to dampened clay within Yaz’s hold in seconds, free to mould and cast any which way Yaz would prefer. 

But when Yaz’s fingers _scratch_ against the sensitive spot where her wings meet her back, Ava’s reaction is frenzied. She clutches at the back of Yaz’s neck for dear life and fists her free hand into the soft cotton of her orange jumper with a trembly whimper. 

Foreign flames lick at her gut, each glide of confident fingers and warm lips stoking them to a raging blaze. 

“You’re so responsive,” Yaz sighs against her throat, her lips scalding naturally cool flesh. To Ava’s muted whine, her brows furrow against her jaw. “Tell me if it’s too much, okay?”

Dizzied and greedy, Ava’s fingers tighten in the silky locks gracing the back of Yaz’s neck. “Please don’t stop.” 

“Yeah?” Yaz purrs. Ava’s hips twitch and embers fall and scatter south of her gut. 

“ _Yasmin_.” 

“Easy,” snickers her counterpart, sinking into the space below her jaw to set up home. 

While Ava breathes unevenly through her shaking lungs and opts not to fight the blooming heat at the apex other parted thighs, Yaz’s teeth and tongue make quick work of her pale skin.

One of Yaz’s hands skirts up from Ava’s knee to find her waist, thumb breezing along the hem of her bra through her thin white shirt. Ava’s head spins with it. 

It’s overwhelming in the best way, and even more so when Yaz nicks at the skin just below her ear with a breathy hum and a pleased smirk. 

By the time Yaz pulls back to survey her work, Ava is trembling on the precipice between the present and something terrifyingly unfamiliar but nonetheless inviting. Yaz’s smirk (does she know what’s happening to her? Because Ava sure doesn’t) is audible amidst Ava’s breathlessness, and she descends on the other side of her neck with keen enthusiasm.

The consecutive scratch of clipped nails through her primary plumes is what finally brings Ava to her stuttering crescendo. 

With a shuddering gasp and an iron-like grip on Yaz’s slender waist, Ava is pulled taut like a rope unwound after centuries of entanglement. 

Her jaw slackens and every single one of her senses heightens their efforts. She can hear the rush of blood through her vessels and arteries and sense the exact moment Yaz’s lips ease their pressure as her heart trips over itself. 

The fingers embedded through her chestnut feathers pause and the hot mouth against her throat breaks away.

To the sound of Yaz’s blinking eyelids, Ava comes back down from cloud nine. 

She trembles down to her very core, hands unfurling from Yaz’s form if only to grip the countertop and train her embarrassment southwards. The instant Yaz draws back enough, Ava ducks her head and chews on the inside of her cheek. 

Yaz’s smirk is loud, her tone surprised. “Did you just—?” 

“I’m sorry. I— I wasn’t meant to— I was just really —” Ava’s stomach muscles churn with the last of the tremors and she thinks her face might be on fire. Her brows pinch with shame and she bores holes into the wooden floorboards below. 

It takes some restraint to not _actually_ mark the surface. Ava battles down the embers at her fingertips with practiced effort. 

“Ava,” she hears Yaz murmur millimetres above her bowed head, but Ava is adamant never to look up ever again. 

Shame douses her form in waves despite the euphoria still riding her veins like easy surf. Even when gentle fingers sift through her hair to peel away the curtains shielding her face from view, Ava grumbles her chagrin. 

“Babe, please don’t be embarrassed,” Yaz implores softly, crooking two fingers under her chin and tipping her head up gently. 

If only Ava could resist Yaz’s affectionate contact. As such, she allows her to draw her head back up, but purses her lips and studies the material of her jumper while Yaz continues to bemusedly seek out her eyes. 

“Sweetheart, look at me.” 

“I’m sorry,” Ava mumbles again, gaze flitting north then retreating just as quick. “That’s not— I’ve never done that before—” 

“ _Ava_ ,” repeats Yaz. She’s firm enough to encourage Ava’s eyes up once more, where they stick hard and fast to Yaz’s softened browns like glue. Sympathy pulls at the corners of her mouth and she uncurls one of Ava’s hands from its white-knuckled grip on the black countertop to wind their pinkies together. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Ava breathes, hearts easing from their deafening drumbeat to a more languid pace. Her face still burns, the heat of it making her brow and the back of her neck break out in a faint sheen of sweat. 

If Yaz notices the fizzling sparks retreating from the tips of Ava’s fingers and coiling around her own like tactile snakes before dissipating into the air, she doesn’t say anything. “You wanna know what I think?” 

“I don’t know,” Ava supplies honestly. 

When Yaz laughs, she can’t stay tense and guilt-ridden for long. Breathing easy, Ava licks her lips and squeezes Yaz’s fingers, honing in on the glands in her neck when she inhales. 

Even after all the places she’s been; every single mile she’s explored, she’s never encountered an aroma quite like it. The heady fragrance infiltrates her senses in swathes of citrus and sweet nectar, dispersing any hope of cohesive thought out into the night. 

“I think,” Yaz starts, brows pinching together (likely at the way Ava’s eyelids flutter every time her lungs fill up). “It was pretty hot.”

_Just_ as her cheeks had begun to cool, they flare up once more. Her right ear twitches upwards and her mouth falls lax, eyes blown. “You—” 

“And I also think it’s about time you got out of those clothes,” Yaz continues, knowing _full well_ where Ava’s mind drifts to. And despite not seeming guilty, she saves her hearts from total collapse. “Not like that. I mean ‘cause there’s blood on your shirt. You can borrow some of mine, if you want?” 

Thoughts entirely disparaged ( _what’s her name again?_ ), Ava ( _that’s the one_ ) cocks her head. “Your blood?”

Yaz snickers. Ava’s gone for her; well and truly. “My _clothes_ , babe.”

“Oh.” Shaking her head to dispel the fays toying with her cognition, Ava slips from the countertop with help from Yaz’s guiding hands. “You don’t mind?”

Bemusement throws Yaz’s eyebrows up. “Of course not. C’mon.” 

Doused in yellow and white and neatly organised, Yaz’s bedroom is airy and welcoming on approach. A collection of photos are methodically arranged into a perfect rectangle above her double bed, a desk sits against the wall beside the balcony doors. 

In their rush through the flat earlier on, Ava hadn’t the time to admire the expansive room. Now, though, she loiters at Yaz’s bedside while Yaz roots through her drawers and tilts her head to seek out the glowing stars decorating her ceiling. 

“I like those,” she compliments, forcing Yaz to follow her gaze and huff an embarrassed chuckle. 

“They’re silly, I know,” mutters Yaz. 

Ava frowns. “What’s so silly about the stars?”

With a folded pile of clothes in hand, Yaz straightens up and rolls her shoulders in a shrug. “Most people think I’m too old to have glow in the dark stars on my bedroom ceiling.”

“Then most people are boring,” Ava retorts with a cheeky grin. “Can’t have a bedroom without stars.”

Equal parts amused and flushed, Yaz comes to a stop just before her. “Here, take these.” Ava accepts the offered clothing with a pop of her brows. “They should fit okay. I’ll leave you to it, babe.”

The material is soft under her palms, a far cry from the suits she’d been stealing from Sarah-Jane’s aging wardrobe for longer than she can remember. Biting into her bottom lip, Ava nods, quick and bashful. “Thank you. Really.”

Yaz’s softened expression melts impossibly more so. Touching a hand to her waist and feeling the muscles there contract when Ava shivers, she backs up to the door. “I’ll — I’ll just be outside if you need me, okay?”

With an affirming hum, Ava sets the borrowed garments on the bed and begins unbuttoning her stained shirt. 

Yaz’s heart rate picks up on the way out the door. 

Ava can’t help the knowing smirk she shoots at her retreating form. 

But, as soon as she slips her shirt off her shoulders and scoops up its replacement; a cotton sweatshirt softened with age, her face falls with belated realisation. 

She trades her navy slacks for a pair of black leggings before she wrings her hands in fidgeting discomfort. Her white shirt is littered with dry blood and unsalvageable even by the best of detergents. Not for the first time, she curses the monstrous wings on her shoulders. 

The mirror leant against the wall in the corner of the room provides little comfort — she’s all jagged edges and messy feathers. The marred, blotchy red skin gracing her right shoulder laughs an age-old laugh cruelly back at her. 

It’s still casting its wicked curse upon her when a knock lands against the door. 

“Is everything alright in there, Ava?” Yaz poses, her voice filtering through the hinge in compassionate concern. When Ava blinks, she spots her heat signature on the other side of the wooden panels, her hand on the doorknob. 

“Uh,” Ava pauses, curls her arms around her waist along the band of her ratty sports bra, and gives in to the inevitable. “Actually, um— I could do with some help.” 

“Of cou— oh. Hi.” Yaz’s entrance comes with flushed cheeks and quickly averting eyes. If she notices the scar marking Ava’s skin, she doesn’t say anything. 

Releasing a breath she didn’t know she was holding, Ava huffs a shy laugh. “Um, so. Might’ve forgotten that my tops are customised to accommodate my wings. Sorry. D’you mind if I just grab my blazer? My shirt’s a bit…” 

“Oh, _shit_ ,” Yaz curses. 

Before Ava can add anything further, can pin the blame on herself for her unconventional appearance, Yaz slaps her palm against her forehead and drags it down her face. The sound makes her wince. 

“Of course. I’m so bloody stupid,” mutters Yaz with a self-directed huff of frustration. 

But Yaz shouldn’t be blaming herself. Not for Ava’s mistake. Namely the two aching wings on her back. “Really, it’s fine. I can just —” 

When Yaz cuts a path to her desk and plucks free a pair of sharp scissors, however, Ava’s next breath catches in her throat and she maps out the quickest escape route like second nature. 

The worried crease to Yaz’s brow when she notices Ava’s sudden stiffness hammers away at the hearts beating rapidly beneath her ribs. 

Despite her instinctive response, Ava’s anxiety is disproved when Yaz scoops up the jumper from the bed and twirls her finger at her. “Turn around, sweetheart.” 

“Yaz, what are you—” 

“I really should’ve picked up sewing when I were younger,” Yaz mutters under her breath as soft fabric brushes the backs of Ava’s wings, mindful of her wounds. 

When she rounds in front of her again, Yaz takes the scissors to the material of her grey jumper without hesitation. Two holes an equal measure apart adorn the fabric before Ava can think to stop her. 

“Yasmin, that’s — that’s your jumper,” Ava breathes in alarm, guilt tearing its untrimmed nails through her ribs. “ _Yaz_.” 

“I can get another one,” Yaz dismisses with a shrug of her shoulder. “Besides, y’can’t wear that shirt the whole time you’re here.” 

Ava’s chest swells. “ _The whole time I’m here_?” she repeats, batting down the hope in her voice. 

“Well, I’m not letting you leave until your wing is better,” Yaz pitches, tidying up the large tears before offering the garment up with a tentative smile. “If that’s alright with you?”

The cotton is soft against her ears when Ava pulls the borrowed jumper over her head and folds her wings through. She winces and gasps in place of a reply, however, when the material brushes her affected spines. 

Stepping up on instinct, Yaz’s gaze skirts the flat of her stomach like she can’t resist the skin on display. At the same time as Ava’s cheeks and chest warm at the sight of Yaz’s approving expression, her wing throbs with pain again. 

“D’you want some help?” 

“Nah, just… need a minute.” Two lungfuls of air later, Ava grits her teeth and squints through the discomfort of folding her wings through the fabric. The quicker she burrows them through, the sooner the pain ebbs. 

With silver tears in her eyes but renewed comfort upon her cool skin, Ava resettles a long moment later. She glances over her shoulder to check over the panging nerves on her right side before turning back to a worried Yaz. 

“Okay?”

Ava curls her fingers around the hem of her grey sweatshirt and breezes them over the plush, fleecy layer beneath. “This is so soft.” 

“I can wash your clothes, but I don’t think I’ll be able to save your shirt,” Yaz poses. “Sorry, babe.” 

Ava’s shoulders roll in a shrug. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. I can find another one.” 

“You look cute in these,” Yaz remarks, reaching out to touch her waist. “Think you might have to keep ‘em.” 

“ _Yasmin_ ,” Ava gawps, leaning into her touch no less. “You’ve already done so much.” 

Simpering, Yaz licks her lips and nods her head over her shoulder. “Guess you don’t want any hot chocolate either, then?”

_Oh._

Well, that’s just _cruel_. 

Yaz can read her like a book. 

“Thought so,” Yaz snickers, taking her hand and walking backwards. “Come on.” 

* * *

“Did you put —” 

“Yes, I put extra sugar in there.”

“And what are—” 

“Marshmallows.” 

“Why would you name a piece of confectionary after a muddy patch of land?” 

“...” 

“You’ve got me there, babe.” 

“They don’t taste like mud.”

“How would you know what—” 

“Oh! There it is. Can y’feel it?”

“What? The diabetes?” 

“ _No_. The sugar. I can feel it. I’m fizzing inside.” 

“Hm. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea.” 

“Why?”

“‘Cause you can’t fly all that extra energy off this time.” 

“Oh. Oh, _yeah_. Oops?”

* * *

Leftover energy still keeps her fidgeting when Ava encourages a half-asleep Yaz to her room later on that night. 

Loitering at the end of her bed, Ava twists her fingers together and rocks on her toes while Yaz peels back the sheets. “Um — y’know — I’ll just sit out on the balcony, give you some peace and quiet. That sorta’ thing.” 

Yaz sits herself down on the bed and rubs her eyes before replying, and, _God_ , the mattress just sinks beneath her. It looks so soft and so pliant. Ava’s toes curl at the thought of embracing it just so. “You could always join me? But I guess you’re used to staying up during the night, right?” 

“I usually sleep during the day,” Ava confirms, biting the corner of her lip. “But I could — I mean— extra rest might help with my wing, so—”

“There’s more than enough room for you.”

Biting back her instincts, Ava approaches tentatively. “And you’re sure it’s okay for me to stay?”

Yaz draws back the pale yellow sheets and pats the spot beside her. It’s difficult for Ava to refuse after that. “Wouldn’t offer otherwise, sweetheart.”

The bed is just as comfortable as Ava had suspected. Even softer than Yaz’s couch — and _that_ was heavenly. She sinks into it like she would a cloud; full-bodied and in absolute bliss. 

The pillow is doused in Yaz’s dizzying scent and with a sigh of approval, Ava shifts onto her side just to nestle into the material with the junction of her jaw and neck. Like two rings interlocked, her own primal aroma adds to the mix. 

By the time she is satisfied with her addition, Yaz has slinked down alongside her, closed palms tucked under her cheek. She watches on with mild curiosity and a familiar pinch of amusement. “Comfortable?”

“I was just…” Ava thinks she turns pink. Her ear twitches and Yaz boldly reaches between them to smooth it back with her thumb. “It’s a thing I do. I don’t know why. It’s just instinct.” 

“Must get annoying sometimes, huh? Not knowing a lot about yourself.”

Ava exhales through her nose and leans into her affectionate caresses even if they threaten to send her hearts into shock. “Sometimes, yes. But I try not to dwell on it. Besides, I can recall small details — about my biology and some of the history of my people. It’s just the authenticity of it that I can’t prove.” 

“Of course, yeah.” Yaz traces the pointed tip of Ava’s ear in open fascination. “I’m really sorry you have to deal with that.”

While Ava loses herself to the elegant slope of Yaz’s jaw and the way her eyes cloud over with fatigue, her counterpart nudges a foot alongside her own and slides her hand down to her neck. 

“I’ve been doing some research online since we met. I even tried searching the word _Gallifrey_ , but there’s nothin’. How can there be nothin’?” 

“I’ve got to keep my mysterious nature alive, haven’t I?” scoffs Ava. At Yaz’s frustrated _hmph_ , though, she softens. “Listen, I’m touched that you’d even research for me, but I’ve tried myself. There’s really not much point. The way I see it, if something did come up, I don’t even know if I’d _want_ to find out more. Earth is just as much a home to me now.” 

“I still think you deserve to know,” Yaz rebukes, but the tone of her voice is of fierce compassion more than anything untoward. “And I’m gonna keep looking anyway.”

At a loss for how to word her appreciation to its full effect, Ava closes what little distance separates them to brush the cool tips of their noses together like pieces into place. “Thank you.” 

“Thank _you_ ,” Yaz returns, pressing a kiss to the corner of her mouth and warming Ava’s cold bones by an entire degree. “For not runnin’ away the first time we met.” 

Ava turns her face in time for Yaz’s next peck. With a blissful sigh, she captures her lips in a gentle kiss, holds it, then breaks away with a quiet _smack_. Her voice only shakes a touch. “Same to you, Yaz.”

Surprised but no less pleased, Yaz curls closer with a yawn and drooping lashes. 

She’s not too tired, however, to miss the way Ava’s unmarred wing enshrouds her shoulders and hides them from the rest of the room the instant her eyes close.

Breathing a self-berating grumble, Ava protests against her extended limb to no avail. “Sorry — another habit,” she discloses, embarrassed. “I’m used to guarding things I want to keep safe.” 

Swallowing around nothing, it seems, Yaz chuckles. It’s gruff with exhaustion. “Babe, I were sorta counting on it. Keep it around me?”

“Oh.” Ava stops fighting back imminently. Instead, she lets it tuck behind Yaz’s shoulders and secure itself in place with an approving rustle. “Yeah, I can do that. Definitely. Absolutely.” 

“Goodnight, Ava,” Yaz laughs, sleep-deprived and husky. A pinky finger finds her own, interweaves and locks into place. 

Swallowing down a confession of sorts, Ava nestles into her pillow and perfumes her lungs with Yaz’s citrusy essence. “Goodnight, Yasmin.” 

She counts Yaz’s soft exhalations until they even out then conducts the same over her solo heartbeat. The gentle _thudthud_ , coupled with her sleep-warm body, forces Ava to follow suit despite her unconventional sleeping pattern (if and when she sleeps at all, that is). A contented sigh and a quick adjustment of her injured wing — letting it come to rest atop the sheets rather than burrow beneath and risk irritation— marks the seconds before unconsciousness strikes. 

This time, when Hypnos claims her for his own, he doesn’t force her through further turmoil. No — instead, Ava dreams of looping the planet with a sharper, richer pair of wings brushing against her own in playful delight. When she turns her head, Yaz’s gleaming grin puts even the aurora borealis to shame. 

Her eyes broadcast neon red, matching the specs dusting her nose and cheeks and forcing Ava’s wings to beat out of tune. She’s weak to the very spines of her feathers, every nerve coordinated by the twitch and twist of Yaz’s sinful expression. And Yaz knows it. 

It turns a little more blurry after that; flashes of clashing forms in mid-air and hot breath against her neck, then nails stroking through her chocolate plumes and a growl in her throat. 

Yaz’s lips are on hers, then her neck, then the jut of her shoulder blades and the base of her wings. They leave scorch marks behind in their wake.

Ava jolts awake too early to find out what happens next. She’s flushed and breathless in the low light of sunrise, which douses the curtains in peach and gold.

Beside her, Yaz is still lost to slumber. 

Sighing under her breath, Ava drags a hand over her face and rubs at her eyes, grateful at least for the restfulness submerging her system into contented beatitude. Her abrupt awakening seemingly dislodged her wing from Yaz’s slim shoulders, but rather than mourn the loss, Ava sits herself up and shuffles to the edge of the bed. 

She loves Yaz’s home — there’s no denying it — but her instincts don’t part with her as soon as she steps inside. 

Seeking fresh air and less imposing walls, Ava slips from the mattress to pad towards the balcony doors. She spares a glance over her shoulder towards Yaz’s sleeping form before sliding it open, bit by bit, and surrendering herself to the cold January frost. She closes it behind her to keep her counterpart lathed in warmth. 

The ground is as cold as ice under her bare feet but she buzzes with it, hopping onto the patio table to take in the waking city and a frozen breath through her thawing lungs. 

A bitter breeze rustles her feathers and nips at the tips of her ears. It doesn’t, however, discourage a speckled brown starling from landing on the silver metal railings before her. With a chirrup in greeting, he skitters closer, beady eyes wide. 

“Hiya, Theo,” Ava replies, swinging her feet beneath herself and offering up a touched grin. “Keepin’ an eye out for me?”

Her feathered friend trills its reply, to which Ava chirps back, “You were worried about me? Why? I’m always alright, me.”

But Theo’s concern is still present if the way he lands on her shoulder a moment later and pecks his beak into her hair to sift through the strands. 

“ _Come on,_ mate. It’s just a scratch. Yaz has been looking after me,” she rebukes, extending a hand and crooking her index finger. Theo resettles there with a tilted head. “How are the little fledgelings? And the missus?” 

Oh, _that_ makes him warble. 

Ava’s eyebrows lift in surprise once her long-time sidekick has finished his rant, her mouth parted in a perfect _o._

“No _way_. The greedy little— oh, you’re absolutely right, Theo. Do you think you should start making them pay rent? Six is a tight squeeze in that little nest of yours. Perhaps they can pay with food?” 

Shaking his mottled wings free of dust, Theo tweets in a sweeter tone. 

The action tempts Ava to preen at her own feathers, keeping clear of her healing skin. “Aw. Of course you wouldn’t do that, you little softie. Always a family man, aren’t you? Those chicks are so spoilt. I’m glad Rosie’s doing okay, too. I still think it’s a miracle you two found each other after all that time.” 

As always, duty eventually calls. After a quick catchup and a reassurance that Ava is in safe hands, she bids him a temporary farewell.

“Tell you what, if you stop by tonight, I’m sure Yaz will let me give you some extra food, alright? If not, I’ll fetch some myself,” she poses with a grin, standing to let the dark brown bird stretch his wings and ready his stance to take off. “Let the others know I’m alright, too.”

Stepping up to the railings, Ava watches in mild envy as Theo flits from her fingertips to hover just before her. “Laters, mate. Tell the fam I said hello.” 

A sprightly trill confirms her request and the starling darts towards the blooming skyline before sweeping low between the houses in the direction of Ava’s usual roost. 

Her own wing sags pitifully over her shoulder. 

* * *

With Yaz’s steady heartbeat in her ears, Ava can sense when she begins rousing from her sleep late into the morning. 

Or is it early? She can’t tell. 

Nevertheless, after sloping into the kitchen and searching Yaz’s brimming cupboards, Ava puts together a bowl of cereal and dithers between water, orange juice, or milk; the first of which ultimately ends up drowning the oaty mixture. 

She’s _sure_ it was water she’d tried it with as a child. 

Or perhaps it was squash. 

Still undecided, Ava ignores her doubts and pads through to Yaz’s bedroom not a moment later. 

Sat up in bed, Yaz rubs her eyes free of sleep as Ava enters. When she blinks them open to regard Ava, relief eases her shoulders from their tension. “For a minute there I thought you’d disappeared on me.” 

“And miss out on more hot chocolate? No way,” Ava grins, toes curling into the carpet at the sight of taut muscle beneath Yaz’s tight tank top when she stretches. “Uh —” She lifts the full bowl. “I made you breakfast. I think. I wasn’t sure about it.” 

Yaz’s laugh is hoarse with lack of use. She pats the spot beside her in invitation. “What do you mean, you weren’t sure— ah.”

“Did I do it wrong?”

“Um, well—”

“It was orange juice, wasn’t it? I should’ve put orange juice with it.”

“Not quite, babe, just—” 

“I was just trying to do something nice to say thanks for lettin’ me stay. I’m sorry.”

“ _Ava_.”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you. For trying. Honestly, it’s the thought that counts.”

“I can start again? I’ll make you another bowl. It’s milk, right?”

“That’s right, but it’s okay. I can do it. Just come here.”

“But the kitchen’s the other way. I can’t make you breakfast in here.” 

“Sweetheart, just c’mere.”

“But why— oh. Oh, that’s — this is nice. What’s this for?” 

“Thought you might need it.”

“Huh. I do like hugs. Especially Yaz ones. Thanks.” 

“Anytime, sweetheart.” 

* * *

“Ava?"

“Yeah?”

“Why is every species of bird in Sheffield on my balcony?”

“Theo, you sneaky thing. I told him I’d give him some food, if — if you had any spare. He must’ve told everyone.”

“ _Babe_.”

“Sorry.”

“I guess I could put somethin’ together. On one condition.”

“Yaz, you’re the _best._ What is it?”

“Tell them to stop shitting everywhere?”

“Ah. Yeah. I can do that. Leave it to me, Yasmin.” 

* * *

It takes a month for Ava’s wing to heal enough for flight. A month of new experiences, new flavours, and new sounds to get used to.

The first time the kettle had whistled its deafening whistle in her presence, Yaz had had to coax her down from the top of the fridge for almost an hour while she shook and cowered. 

The first time Ava had tried vegetables, she’d cast the brightly coloured foods off the balcony in disgust.

The first time she’d tried biscuits — custard creams, in particular — she went through three packs in one sitting and still wanted more. 

A month in and a handful more pounds added onto her scrawny bones, Ava stands on the roof of Yaz’s building in a fresh new crimson velvet suit. At her side, Yaz squeezes her pinky finger, reading her hesitation like a book. 

For the first time in her long life, Ava finds herself fearful of the sheer drop ahead. She knows her wings are strong enough; delights in the fresh, lightning blue additions where once her flesh was torn and angry. 

But she’s scared. 

“You’ve done this so many times, Ava,” comments Yaz, wrapped up in a thick sherpa jacket with her nose buried in her scarf. “You just need to stop thinkin’ about it.”

“Hard to stop thinking about it when it’s right there,” Ava replies feebly, extending her wings just to let them tremble in the wind. 

“Just pretend there’s a giant custard cream in the sky.”

“ _Yaz_.”

“Sorry. Not helpful,” Yaz cringes, toeing closer to the edge of the building just to peer over the cemented verge. 

Ava flinches, reaching out to grasp at Yaz’s elbow by instinct. “Please be careful.”

Suitably chastised and more than used to Ava’s caution, Yaz steps back into Ava’s chest and allows her to guide her from imminent danger. 

The sun has set over the city skyline and, under the cover of increasing darkness, this _should_ be when Ava is most comfortable in her abilities. Her ears prick with intuition, searching an expansive radius for any signs of alarm; any suffering screams or scared heartbeats. 

Not that she can do much about them in this state of mind. 

“Everything okay?” Yaz murmurs from her side. “You’ve gone all quiet.” 

Wringing her hands, Ava takes to pacing with slow beats of her wings which lift Yaz’s hair into the air about her face. 

“I’ve never had this problem before.” Ava rolls her shoulders and bites into her bottom lip, her gaze skittish and embarrassed. “I don’t like it.” 

“D’you think —” Yaz takes a breath. Releases it. It greets the air like smoke. “D’you think there’s something else on your mind? And that’s why you can’t focus on flying?”

She sounds hopeful. Ava regards her with a tight-lipped smile at the same time a flush rises to her cheeks. 

She doesn’t recall moving until Yaz’s hand finds her waist and smoothes down the expensive deep red of her blazer. The second Ava brushes their noses together, her mind clears and her wings shift of their own accord. “I think I’m gonna miss you.” 

“You’re not goin’ too far, are you?” Yaz murmurs then, flattening down her collar. 

A silent _please don’t_ hides behind her dark eyes. 

“Can’t get rid of me that quick,” Ava grins, surprising her with a soft kiss. “It’s just a short trip to stretch my wings. I can come and see you whenever you like.” 

A pause. 

“I can, right?”

Yaz snickers, pressing her lips to her chin, then her jaw, then the pulse beating strong and steady in her neck. “‘Course you can.” 

The affection scolds Ava down to the bone, as always. 

Licking her lips, Yaz loops her arms around Ava’s waist and draws her in until she’s flush against her. 

Ava noses at the glands in her neck with a sigh, filling her lungs with her. “I wish you could come with me.”

“You’re tellin’ me,” Yaz retorts. Ava’s hopeful heart soars. If only there was a way. 

_If only there was a way._

Secretly, she smiles against her neck. Even false hope needs pandering sometimes. The golden whisps at the tips of her fingers speak volumes. 

But when Ava glances down, the ground is — when did she — 

“Wait — did _you know_ I was flying?”

“Yep.”

“ _Yaz_.”

“Babe, your wings always go batshit crazy when you’re this close to me. Maybe I exploited it a bit.”

Ava squares her brows while her intuition returns, leaving her rising with every breath. Out of Yaz’s arms, but into her second favourite place; empty air. “Bat shit?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Yaz dismisses. “And before you go, check your pockets.” 

“My pockets? But there’s nothing in my…” When she feels around, however, Ava locates two square-like lumps either side of her jacket. She dips her hand inside one to find a handful of custard creams wrapped up in foil. “Oh, _brilliant_.”

“Don’t eat ‘em all in one go, babe.” 

“I promise. Thanks, Yaz.” 

“Yeah, well, you better come back if you want some more, alright?”

“Yaz,” Ava sing-songs, sweeping up just to test her strength. “I don’t need bribery to come back and see you.”

Hiding a grin, Yaz shoves her hands into her pockets and breathes a sigh through her nose. “Good. And I want you back in one piece next time, please.”

“Yes, ma’am.” 

“See you soon, babe. Be safe. okay?”

Soaring high if only to show off with a clumsy front flip, Ava beams at her newest found treasure. “I’m always safe.”

“Yeah, babe, of course you are. Absolutely. Should’ve never doubted you.” 

* * *

In the sand and rock of a cove somewhere off California’s coast, otherwise hidden gemstones and ancient lost jewels glint and glimmer under Ava’s neon gaze. 

Ava thinks they would look more at home decorating Yaz’s ears or the slender slope of her neck. 

Once plucked free, they tumble into the depths of her trouser pockets for safekeeping and Ava bites down on a custard cream with a satisfied hum. 

The ocean swills and laps at the bottom of the cliff and even in the dark Ava’s surroundings are steeped in natural beauty. On a quick scan, there’s only one thing missing. One _person_ , more specifically. 

Yaz. 

A foot from her perch on a solid boulder, a ball of feathers bound in fishing rope croaks and wheezes. It takes less than a second for Ava to crouch beside its struggling form and wrangle the wet, barnacle-littered rope between her fingers until it falls slack around the young bird. 

But it’s too late. 

At the same time as she scoops the teal-breasted fledgeling into her palms and douses it in glowing gold lustre, Ava thinks of the many other properties her patient energy particles contain. 

Amongst them, healing, resurrection and transition. 

_Transition._

Recalling her dream from the night prior, Ava tries and fails to starve the sprouting root of hope in her chest. 

Yaz has a family. People who love her; people who would notice if she appeared one day with heavy plumage on her shoulders and eyes which shift in colour depending on her disposition. 

But then. 

“Stop it,” Ava breathes aloud, dispelling a cloud of gold from her lungs when the hummingbird in her palm remains still. Brushing her thumb under its gaping mouth, she nudges at its painted chest to activate the particles flooding its system. 

When it wakes, it does so with an extra pair of wings and a healthily beating heart. 

Ava bids it farewell with an equal measure of disbelief and glee. 

Now she knows her capabilities, the root beneath her ribs grows tenfold; curls its vines around her organs and suffocates her until she accepts the power she wields, but the decision she does _not._

* * *

Yaz is asleep by the time Ava makes it back to the city, accompanied by dawn on the horizon. The sheltered balcony outside her bedroom is Ava’s only solace, but far more pleasant than the decaying house she once called home. 

Exhausted from the journey, Ava sinks to the ground just outside the door, curls up beneath a roomy wing and sleeps fitfully until morning breaks. 

  
  



	3. things that make it warm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hope everyone's doing okay! 
> 
> this chapter is pretty on the hefty side for nsfw so if you're not interested in that type of thing you might wish to skip through those scenes x 
> 
> otherwise please enjoy!

The ice and snow are numbing even beneath a thick picnic blanket and the scolding hot chocolate in her system. 

The chill in her bones is easily dismissed, however, when such a colourful performance is on display in the skies above. Green dances between yellow and blue and kisses the powdered mountaintops in random bursts of affection. 

Ava’s chest is solid against her back. She warms a degree more in time with Yaz’s next bout of shivers, looping her arms snugly around her waist and dropping her chin to her shoulder. 

“What do you think?” 

“This is insane,” Yaz breathes through a huff of laughter, her neck already protesting her constant northward gaze. “I could watch it forever.”

“Every time I’ve been here,” Ava starts, tone wistful, “I’ve never seen two displays the same.” 

When Yaz follows the line of her sight, she eyes the nearest dancing lights with a vested interest. 

“Some people say the lights are caused by a fox swishing its tail and sending snow up into the heavens,” Ava supplies in wonder. “That’s my favourite theory so far.”

Not for the first time, Yaz trades the natural beauty before her for a rarer, more unique one altogether. Ava glimpses south when she notices eyes on her. 

When Yaz makes no move to relocate her gaze, the body pressed behind her increases in temperature and Ava licks her lips in a nervous tick. 

“You’re missin’ out on one of the most beautiful sights Earth has to offer,” she murmurs in puzzled protest. 

Popping a brow skyward, where kaleidoscopic lights intersect and waltz between the mountaintops, Yaz treats Ava to a coy grin. “Don’t think so.” 

Puzzlement deepens to plain confusion, then retreats to make way for burning cheeks and pupils which flash with crimson. 

“You mean me?” Ava poses, tightening her hold. Yaz thinks she feels her tremble, but it isn’t down to the cold. 

Bumping their foreheads together, Yaz laughs. It echoes in the valley and beyond, but most importantly, it paints Ava’s features in contentment. “‘Yeah, I mean you. Thanks for bringin’ me here, babe.” 

“It’s been a whole year since we first met.  _ That _ is something worth celebrating,” Ava marvels, pressing an emboldened kiss to Yaz’s waiting mouth. 

Satisfied, Yaz readjusts, leaning her head back against Ava’s shoulder and letting the dancing skies lure her gaze north. 

With her face averted, however, she lets the voice in her head run wild. 

“It feels shorter to you, though, right? With how long you’ve lived. I must seem like just a blip in your timeline.”

At her back, Ava freezes. “Yaz…” 

Yaz swallows, eager to get her ten cents in while the moon is bright. The night sky has always been infected by truth serum. “And I get that. That’s okay. Frankly, I’m pretty honoured to be a part of it. I wanted you to know that.” 

Ava’s voice is soft enough to melt all of Yaz’s insides into one when she replies, “Then why do you sound so sad?”

When Yaz ducks her chin forward to seek out anonymity and hide her face, Ava just holds her tighter. “I don’t like the thought of you bein’ alone again when I’ve gone.”

“Yasmin,” Ava sighs, hot breath ghosting the crown of Yaz’s head. “I don’t think I’ll ever be  _ truly _ alone with you — and these memories — on my mind.”

But Yaz’s heart continues to constrict within the tight fist of dread; concern;  _ guilt _ . Peeling Ava’s hand free from its hold on her waist, Yaz wraps both of her own around it. “Right, yeah.” 

The chest at her back falls with a slow exhale.

“Yaz, look at me.”

The gold ring gracing Ava’s thumb gets twisted and turned between Yaz’s fingers. Yaz sinks further into her shadow for fear that one day she might not be able to anymore. She breathes her in, all musk and cherries and sugar. 

_ “Yaz _ .” 

Stubbornly, Yaz makes slow work of sitting up and turning around. When she meets Ava’s gaze — since softened to a summer yellow tinted with blue — her defences scatter in the snow around them. 

“There you are,” Ava grins. It glints in her pupils and freckles and coats her face in a calming sheen. “Hi.” 

“I’m sorry.”

“Shh. It’s natural to be worried,” Ava admits solemnly. Shadows pass the corner of Yaz’s vision a second before strong wings eclipse them both from the rest of the world. “But this is new for me, too. This is — this is  _ nothing _ I could’ve imagined. And it’s so much better for it. So do you think we could focus on what’s happening  _ now _ , rather than what’s to come? I really don’t want to waste this, Yaz. I’ve waited to find love for long enough. To find  _ you _ .” 

Ava’s imploration falls on sympathetic ears and, in a mollifying flash, Yaz concludes that she’s not the only one hurting — prematurely or not. 

Biting down on the inside of her bottom lip, Yaz nods. She barely breathes before Ava’s thumb graces the corner of her mouth and taps at her lip to force her teeth to ease their assault. 

“You’re right,” Yaz supplies. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin our date.”

“You’re only worried because you care,” Ava persuades, dropping her hand to Yaz’s knee. It burns through the material of her jeans in seconds. “I’d never be upset at you for caring about me. Not ever.”

Yaz luxuriates in Ava’s slow, cat-like blinks while dread retreats to its dormant state behind her ribs; a wyvern caged for future release. In its place sits bountiful hope, the kind which piles cement atop her worries and paints even the most gloomy skies in blue and yellow.

When Ava reaches out, making a grasping motion with her hands, Yaz takes the incentive to climb into her lap with buzzing veins and jelly legs, leaving her girlfriend to loop her arms around her waist for extra security. 

Only once she’s cleared her throat does Ava meet Yaz’s gaze again, now-ruby hues warm enough to thaw any frigidness inhabiting Yaz’s system. If that didn’t work, the heat radiating off her like her very own compact sun surely does.

“Yasmin?”

Yaz leans in, arms encircling Ava’s neck and fingers sifting through her afterfeathers like second nature. Ava softens entirely under her affectionate attention, lashes fluttering. “Yeah?”

“Whenever you’re around, I get this — uh — this feeling, in my chest, and my brain goes all wonky and I can’t focus on anything. It’s like the whole world falls away and only you and I exist. I can’t think about anything other than you, and I don’t even  _ want _ to. 

And, yeah, sometimes it scares me. It terrifies me, actually, because this is all so new. I’ve never felt anything like it before, and it’s the most frightening, most  _ exciting _ thing I’ve ever experienced. Then you kiss me, or you hug me, or you just… you just  _ look _ at me, Yaz, and everything just feels right. It feels natural — like I’ve been heading towards this my whole life. Like it’s fate.

Before we met, there was nothing tying me anywhere. I was a stray, sweeping about just to give myself some kind of purpose; helping people just to honour the ghost of the woman who saved me. 

You’re always thanking me for rescuing you that night, Yaz. For protecting you from the worst of humanity, but I want to thank you. For saving  _ me _ . I really didn’t know how to carry on like that, Yaz. Immortality isn’t always a blessing. Especially when it’s singular. Just one. Just me. So, thank you.”

“And, uh,” Ava pauses, tipping Yaz’s chin up so as to whisper the words upon her lips. “I think — well, not think — I  _ know _ — that I’m in love with you, Yasmin. I hope that’s alright with you.”

Yaz’s jaw works overtime while her mouth opens, closes. Opens. Closes. Opens again. Wrapped up in the arms of a fallen luminary, she drags her in by her collar and presses her speechless mouth to lips which twitch with vulnerability. 

As always, rich chocolate and sour cherries burst from Ava’s gums and send Yaz’s blood sugar levels soaring. After overcoming her initial surprise, Ava melts into the contact with a rustle of feathers and a hitched sigh. 

Between heady, dizzying kisses, Yaz finds her voice again. 

“That first night wasn’t  _ actually _ the first time you rescued me, though, was it, babe?” she murmurs into the millimetres separating their lips, thinking back to a deserted country road and encroaching nightfall. This close, she can witness the speed at which Ava’s expression shifts to surprise. 

“I think you’ve been savin’ me at every turn in the road for the whole of my life, Ava. Like some kind of guardian angel.”

Stunned, Ava touches her fingertips to Yaz’s jaw and gazes at her through long lashes with those big, intense eyes Yaz can’t escape from even in her dreams.

“And that’s probably why I love you, too.”

A flash of blue greets her skin but Yaz barely jumps, so used to Ava’s sparks of excitement as she is. Besides, there are more important things on her mind, such as the slow-growing smile on her girlfriend’s face and the way her irises gloss over in the transition between colours. 

Red-eyed, Ava wets her lips. “Tell me again.”

Yaz’s heart soars. In record time, Ava captures the runaway organ in her palms and guards it with her life. 

“Tell you what?” Yaz hums, gaze slipping and falling down Ava’s nose to the curve of her top lip. 

Ava’s huff is petulant, like a child denied extra ice cream (although Ava  _ does _ love ice cream, too). “ _ Yaz _ .”

In time with the next green wisp to streak across the sky above, Yaz’s lips find Ava’s cheek. “I—” Then her nose, “ — love —” and, lastly, her mouth, “— you.” 

Reeling from the contact, Ava melts into the last show of affection with something akin to a purr. Yaz feels her arms tighten around her hips in a precursor to the cool lips Ava lowers to her jaw.    
  


“This is the best day of my life,” Ava sighs against the junction of her neck, where a scarf sits in the way of any further exploration. In a habit Yaz has grown accustomed to, Ava nuzzles her cheek against the glands in her neck with a low, gruff noise, leaving her rich, earthy scent behind. 

Flushing with the insinuation that Ava is branding her as her own, Yaz’s mind whirrs into overdrive. Each affectionate touch and primal response makes her dizzy, not to mention the sparks erupting freely from Ava’s fingertips with every adjustment of her touch. 

Under the backdrop of the dancing heavens, Yaz tips her head back and indulges herself in Ava’s giddy affection. 

Until, voice a low husk, Ava reaches her ear and nestles her nose behind it. “Yasmin?”

In bliss, Yaz’s lips flirt upwards. “Mm-hm?” 

An emboldened hand curls around the hem of Yaz’s thick jacket and heat elapses their form in thick waves. “I think I’m ready.” 

“Ready?” repeats Yaz. “Ready for —” 

The deep red lustre to Ava’s pupils when she draws herself back cuts Yaz’s question short. 

“Oh,” Yaz breathes instead. “You mean —” 

Ava wets her lips, pupils dark. She has the same look in her eyes when Yaz presents her with her favourite meal. “Yeah.” 

“Huh.” 

“D’you — I mean, d’you want to watch the lights for a bit longer?”

“Not sure I’ll be able to focus after that, t’be honest, sorry.”

Ava’s laughter reaches every valley and every natural peak; as soft and giddy as it may be. “I can bring you back here whenever you like.” 

“In that case…” 

“Home?”

“Home.” 

“Hold on tight, Yaz.”

“Always— wait, why are you laughin’?”

“‘Cause it isn’t the last time I’ll be saying that tonight.”

“Ava! You sly dog!”

“Yaz, I am an ancient being with wings and a —” 

“Alright. Nevermind, babe.” 

* * *

“ _ Yaz _ .”

“Mm?”

“You need to stop doing that.”

“What, this?”

At the same time as Yaz’s lips continue their assault on the jumping pulse in Ava’s neck, the blonde’s wings momentarily lose rhythm and they swoop low through light, fluffy clouds. 

With a squeal, Yaz scrambles for a tighter grip. 

Ava’s eyes are aflame but no less guilty. “Sorry. Distracted. I  _ told  _ you.”

“Message received, babe.” 

“...”

“ _ Yasmin _ .”

“What?”

“That doesn’t mean you can touch me instead.”

“But —” 

“Ten more minutes, Yaz. Can you resist me for that long?”

“Don’t think so. Y’know, I wouldn’t be averse to joining the mile-high—” 

“ _ Yaz _ .”

“Fine! Alright, just keep goin’, babe.” 

“Yes, ma’am.”

* * *

Ava touches down on the balcony to Yaz’s flat with an elegant flourish. 

As soon as Yaz’s feet meet the ground, however, she’s dragged in for a keen, ardent kiss; the kind which numbs her cold legs and forces every sensory nerve in her system to shift into high alert. 

Each touch, each grasping hold on her waist, her hips, her shoulders — multiplies its sensitivity on the journey to her brain. Ava ravages her like she’s been deprived of her lips for centuries. 

Hands finding home in Ava’s hair, Yaz allows Ava to walk her towards the sliding door. The solid surface finds her back and Ava deepens the kiss with a low yawl; one which raises in volume when Yaz drags her flush against her thawing body. 

Palms moulding against her hips, Ava captures her bottom lip between pointed teeth and laps her tongue along the curve in a hungry sweep. 

“We should probably —” Yaz pauses to sigh when Ava nips at her lip, pitching into her. “— take this… inside.”

Ava grumbles her displeasure against the corner of her lips and, giddy at the prospect of more beyond the glass at her back, Yaz laughs. 

When Ava pulls back, however, Yaz loses her breath entirely. 

Enshrouded by long, dark lashes, Ava’s irises burn rich maroon. They swirl with it like miniature hurricanes, the slit of her black pupils blending in to create a bold, bewitching display of carnal hunger. 

Swallowing around a whimper, Yaz loses herself to them until Ava clears her throat.

“Do you want us to go inside, or…” she mumbles, oblivious. 

Yaz blinks. “Oh. Oh, yeah. Inside, right.”

Fishing her keys from her pocket, Yaz guides them toward the lock with trembling fingers. 

Taking advantage of her struggle, Ava closes in on her like a born predator. While Yaz tracks her burning eyes in the reflection, Ava sweeps dark locks aside to press scolding lips to her neck. 

“ _ Ava _ ,” breathes Yaz. “Babe, I’m trying to—” 

Ava slots her hips against Yaz’s backside with a purr. “Your  _ scent _ , Yaz. I can’t help it.” 

“Are you sayin’ I smell?”

The body at her back freezes as Yaz finally unlocks the door. After stepping into her connecting bedroom, Yaz turns to greet Ava’s guilty expression. 

“I was jokin’, babe.”

“Oh,” Ava breathes, folding her wings snugly behind her back and rocking on her toes. Suddenly, she unravels into the tentative, nervous Ava who Yaz knows so well. Adores so well.  _ Loves so well. _ “I knew that.”

Kicking her boots off, Yaz wets her lips and extends a hand. Ava always responds better under her guidance. She’s almost  _ keen _ for it. “C’mere.”

Ava’s pupils shimmer en route through the dimly lit room. She comes to a stop just before Yaz, tangling their fingers together and leveling their eyes with a degree of shyness. 

“Shoes off,” instructs Yaz. 

Maintaining her hold on Yaz’s hand, Ava tucks her toes against the back of her brogues and nudges them off one by one. Once satisfied (and almost at the same height as Yaz), she touches her free hand to Yaz’s cheek and allows Yaz to coil her own around her hips. 

Yaz leans into her tender touch, scanning her eyes for hesitation or fear. “Are you sure about this? ‘Cause we can just relax, watch a movie… anything you like, Ava. We don’t have to do anything you’re not absolutely comfortable doing. I really don’t mind. I promise.”

Ava takes to skimming her thumb under Yaz’s fluttering bottom eyelashes in gentle affection. In what feels like slow motion, she draws their foreheads together and inhales deeply.

As though freshly-stimulated, the winged blonde bites into her bottom lip. Yaz thinks her eyes might be glowing, but she only witnesses the glow of them in her peripherals. She’s too distracted by the sheer fact that when Ava’s tongue peeks between her lips, its tip is suddenly forked. 

Yaz  _ has  _ to be seeing things. She must be. There’s no way— 

Before she can think any further on the topic, Ava nods, lips finding hers with a sure, “I want this, Yasmin.”

And, really, how is Yaz meant to respond apart from curling a hand around the back of her neck and dragging her in for more?

That she does. And then some. 

She has Ava’s blazer pushed from her shoulders in seconds. Her own thick coat follows suit. A flash greets the back of her closed lids milliseconds before a dizzying spark embraces her nerves and sets her aflame. 

Ava hums gruffly into her mouth, arching into her, and Yaz suddenly  _ has _ to put her hands on her.  _ Has _ to draw more noises from the back of her throat.  _ Has _ to prove to her how good she can feel. 

But, y’know — no pressure or anything. 

“Shirt,” Yaz commands quietly, pulling at the thin material. “Off.”

While Ava’s fingers work briskly against the buttons of her white shirt, Yaz moulds her lips just as eagerly against Ava’s throat. She hones in on the jumping pulse just below a jaw sharp enough to slice an apple clean in half, then follows its frantic beats with the flat of her tongue. 

Ava’s responding low moan shakes the light fixture above their heads. 

Yaz catches onto the sound of fabric shredding before a  _ very _ bare chest presses up against her own and Ava gasps into the air above. Two peaks, unwitnessed still, stand to attention with little shame nor subtly. 

Impatient for her first sighting, Yaz peels back to take her girlfriend in. 

Unusually flushed and perfectly rounded, Ava’s breasts rise and fall with each deep flood of oxygen in and out of her lungs. Yaz gazes upon the pink flesh of her erect buds with no little level of wonder, only downright hunger; to touch, to shape and to taste. 

A burning marr of her skin paints the curve of her shoulder — the same old scar she’d caught glimpses of in the past. The result of an accident when she was just a child, according to Ava — simple clumsiness combined with an unguarded fireplace leading to a wound so severe it triggered centuries-old scarring. 

Admittedly, Yaz had elected not to focus on the  _ centuries _ part at the time. 

A shaky breath north of her lustful admiration lugs her eyes towards its source, where dark red teems with bashfulness. 

“Think I might need tellin’ again, sorry,” murmurs Ava.

“Ava,” Yaz breathes, thankful for her girlfriend’s honesty but altogether bewildered by her equal lack of vision. “You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever met.” 

Ava swallows audibly, once a quick survey of Yaz’s dilated pupils draws forth not a hint of dishonesty. “And like this?” she adds, motioning to her bare, heaving chest. 

How strange. Let her fly to the other side of the world and back and Ava returns barely out of breath. Kiss her dizzy and admire her toned physique and she seemingly runs a marathon between blinks.

“I’d take it over the northern lights every single day of the week, babe.” 

“What about Niagara Falls? You loved it there. You said it was mesmerizing.”

Yaz darts her tongue out to swipe across the jut of Ava’s cupid’s bow. “You’re ten times the natural wonder.” 

“The Venitian canals?”

“Babe, they  _ stank _ . They definitely pale in comparison.”

Ears twitching, Ava flits her tongue over the same spot, gathering up every morsel of Yaz’s taste. “Thank you.” 

“You’re very welcome,” Yaz hums, hands finding her bare waist. She skirts her thumb under the swell of a pert breast and feels her mouth grow dry. “Can I kiss you here now?” 

Ava’s hasty nod casts any caution to the breeze beyond her balcony doors. Yaz ducks her head with no further restraint to press a series of gentle, coaxing kisses to the perfect skin surrounding the bead of her sensitivity. Yaz circles the opposite bud under her thumb. 

The second she makes contact — with both her mouth and the pad of her fingers — Ava’s feathers rustle and she jerks into her with a keening gasp. Yaz settles a steadying hand at the small of her back, her pinky finger slipping just beneath the waistband of her slacks.

“ _ Oh _ ,” breathes Ava. Yaz watches their stomach muscles jump and tense with every swirl of her tongue around a receptive bud. 

Without thought, Yaz slides her hand down from her breast to rake her clipped nails over the toned slope. She drags them back up with enough pressure to paint white, fast-fading lines upon her perfect skin. 

Yaz sighs against her breast in open wonder, feeling Ava nestle her hips more snugly alongside her own. The sudden movement forces Yaz to graze her teeth over the hardening peak between her lips and coaxes a shuddering gasp from Ava’s heaving lungs. 

“Sorry,” Yaz mutters hastily, pulling away to seek her out. “Too much?”

Dazed and drunk with pleasure, Ava bites into her bottom lip and blinks blearily at her. “Hm?”

“That good, huh?” laughs Yaz, plucking a lock of hair from her fiery eyes and holding her breath when Ava nestles against her hand with a cat-like purr. “And you’re still alright with this, yeah?”

Ava laps her tongue against the inside of her wrist; a quick, instinctive motion Yaz doesn’t care to question. She loves her for all her animalistic quirks.

“Definitely,” she replies with a full-bodied shiver. Ducking her head, Ava curls her thumbs around the band of her black trousers. “Should I — um…” 

Saliva rushes to Yaz’s mouth; curls around her teeth and coats her gums in readiness. “Only if you’re ready.”

Ava’s slacks find the floor fast enough to draw a humoured huff of laughter from Yaz. 

When she straightens up, Ava joins in with a shy chuckle of her own. 

This close, it would be easy for Yaz to mistake the shadow over Ava’s grey polka dot boxers as just that — a shadow. The knowledge that so little attention draws such a response from her girlfriend increases her own burning arousal tenfold. 

As though she can sense the surging seas in Yaz’s loins, Ava takes a shaky inhale through her nose and fidgets on her feet, her pupils enlarging. She drops her gaze south and licks her lips. “Fuck.”

Yaz blinks. Ava never swears. “Wait, can you —”

A sharp brow arches. 

Yaz swallows. “Wow.” 

Ava takes another deluge of air into her lungs and grasps at Yaz’s hip. “I really need you to touch me, Yaz. ‘Cause I don’t think you’ll be able to once I’m done with you.”

Toes curling, Yaz nods to the bed with a barely concealed tremble. “Lie down.”

But when Ava moves to settle on her back, Yaz clears her throat. 

Ava freezes. 

“On your front, babe. I wanna feel your wings.”

Just as eager, Ava repositions herself atop the covers until her bare back exposes the joins of her wings to Yaz’s inquiring gaze for the first time. Turning her head and fidgeting with excitement, Ava follows her approach with dark, unblinking eyes. 

Eyes which widen when Yaz wriggles free from her jeans and drags her jumper over her head. 

Before Ava can reach out, however, Yaz climbs onto the bed after her. The backs of Ava’s thighs are smooth and warm where she straddles her, the milky skin occasionally blemished by a scattering of freckles. 

“ _ Yaz _ ,” Ava growls into the yellow material of Yaz’s pillow, eyes burning holes into Yaz’s exposed thighs. 

“Shh,” Yaz whispers with a lick of smugness. She can’t deny the way Ava’s desire for her stokes the fire burning in her belly. At the same time as it reignites, Ava sniffs the air and moans. Yaz shivers. 

“You’ll get your turn, babe.”

In lieu of a response, Ava wriggles a hand out from beneath her pillow to reach back and grip at Yaz’s knee. Yaz allows her the small mercy this time. Pitching forward, she noses aside her blonde locks and attaches her lips to the back of her neck, hands finding home in soft, chestnut feathers. 

A long, slow exhale falls against Ava’s pillow while Yaz sifts through her afterfeathers and laps her tongue against her thumping pulse. 

Ava’s hips rise; uncoordinated and clumsy but needy for a little friction. 

“You can, um…” her winged girlfriend starts before a moan cuts her off. 

Yaz repeats the scratching, dishevelling work of her fingers through her plumage. “I can—?”

“My neck. You can — you can mark it, if you’d like.”

“Would  _ you _ like me to?”

“I really would.” 

“Your wish is my command, babe,” snickers Yaz. Settling more of her weight over Ava’s toned back, she zeroes in on the sensitive spot she knows lies just below her ear. 

Ava’s whole form tenses up and warms in anticipation when Yaz’s mouth opens against goosebumping flesh. 

After an experimental graze, Yaz goes for gold. 

A deep, guttural groan shudders through Ava’s bones at the first claiming pinch of teeth. Yaz follows its vibrating ripple along her wings to the wispier, darker brown of her outer alulas. 

But what diverts her attention in an instant are the flares of naked electricity dispersing from the fingers gripping her thigh. With a shaky gasp, Yaz keens into Ava’s desperate hold in a slow roll of her hips. 

“ _ Yaz _ ,” squeaks Ava, when the motion grants her the friction she’s pining for. Alongside the fresh graze of teeth against her reddened throat, she squirms like a wind-up toy. 

Yaz relocates to the curve of her ear next, drawing her earlobe between her teeth and lathering the responsive flesh with attention from her tongue. On the next clumsy hitch of Ava’s needy hips, Yaz sighs into her ear. Another current makes the nerves in her thigh sing in pleasant surprise. 

When Yaz seeks out Ava’s expression again, her stomach churns with another surge of arousal to find her jaw slack and her mouth open in silent pleasure. She strokes the very tips of her wings and watches her reptile-like eyes roll to the back of her skull. 

“Ava?” hums Yaz. She returns her fingers to the space where her wings bond to her pale flesh and scratches with enough intent to leave Ava trembling beneath her. “Babe, can I — would you let me kiss you here?” 

In the wake of Ava’s whimpered  _ “please” _ , Yaz props herself up with her palms either side of Ava’s shoulders and leans down to nose at the junction of her back and her left wing. 

Ava’s heaving breaths freeze, precursory to a low, gravelly groan. She writhes beneath Yaz like never before, arching eagerly into the unfamiliar but much-desired sensation. 

“ _ Oh _ ,” she whimpers —  _ whimpers _ — and Yaz beams with her newfound discovery. 

Flitting her gaze over Ava’s side profile and her drunken expression, Yaz opens her mouth and graces the sensitive joint with her lips. 

Instantaneously, Ava whines out a mess of vowels and the familiar wind-chime-like melody of her native tongue. 

“Good?” Yaz hums upon her tousled scapulars, breezing her fingers through the chestnut feathers of her unattended wing until they unfurl and spread in offering. 

Ava’s voice is breathier than ever, hips spasming beneath Yaz’s hunched form until Yaz tightens her thighs around her to make it more difficult.  _ “ _ Please, just keep going.”

“You’re not gonna…” Yaz nuzzles beneath the longer feathers along the top curve of her wing and lifts her gaze in question. 

Despite the way she squirms and trembles like a fly in a web, and the pink sheen coating her usually pale complexion, Ava responds with a shaky, “I can hold it.”

Smirking, Yaz grinds down against her backside and glories in the breathless groan she coaxes from Ava’s open mouth. The change in power is unmatched. “Good.”

While Ava curls her free hand into the sheets at her side, clawing and fisting the fabric until it threatens to shred between her fingers, Yaz mirrors the same movements through her chestnut feathers. At the same time, she sneaks her tongue between every groove and over each ridge in her wings with contented hums and sighs. She could do this all day. 

But Ava’s puppeteer strings are pulled taut in no time at all, and Yaz would  _ really _ like to touch her properly before she snaps under the pressure. 

As soon as her moans begin cantering off into strained gasps and her lungs hitch over every inhale, Yaz drags herself away and sits up with great reluctance. 

Ava’s desperate whine is not lost on Yaz, and, granting her a little mercy, she slumps down beside her wrecked form and pats her thighs in invitation. “Come here, babe. I wanna touch you.”

Scrabbling up with the use of her wings when her knees fail her, the winged blonde shuffles over with the same eagerness as she treats everything with. Before Ava can straddle her waist, however, Yaz hooks her fingers over the waistband of her grey boxers and tugs. 

“Take these off,” she instructs through a raspy voice which betrays her echoing arousal. 

Underwear discarded, Ava mounts her hips with a grunt and Yaz tries (and fails) not to moan when slick flesh greets her abdomen. 

_ “Fuck _ , Ava.” 

“I really need you, Yaz.”

“Y’don’t say.”

Ava shifts above her, eyebrows slanted and eyes darker than she’s ever seen. Sitting up, Yaz presses her lips to the corner of her mouth, then the golden freckles dusting her cheeks. Her hand finds Ava’s thigh and starts its ascent. “D’you want me to touch you now?”

“Please,” sighs Ava. 

Yaz’s bedside lamp flickers and an antlered shadow dances along the opposite wall the second her fingers find the burning core of her pleasure. Gliding through sopping folds, she makes sure to meet Ava’s eye when she eases a finger inside her. 

The ease of the action means she follows her velvety walls until she’s knuckle deep in the scorching heat of her. Only then does Ava grasp at her shoulders and tremble all around her with a moan. 

“Okay?”

“Brilliant,” Ava breathes, eyes closed. She tips her chest forward and her head back and —  _ God _ — if Yaz didn’t  _ already _ see her as the most beautiful being this side of the universe. 

Making the most of her granted access, Yaz ducks her head to capture a pink nipple between her lips and lavish it in the attention it craves. Between Ava’s thighs, Yaz crooks her fingers once, twice, three times before setting up a steady pace of thrusts. 

The myriad of moans, cries and gasps which leave Ava’s lips are music to Yaz’s ears. In time, a second finger joins the first and Yaz’s thumb finds Ava’s engorged bud. 

Ava scrabbles at her, scratches her nails against the backs of her shoulders, hips twitching to chase the pressure. “ _ Oh _ .”

Sliding her free hand to a coil at her hip, Yaz encourages her greedy movements. “You feel so good, babe.  _ So good _ .” 

“Yaz,” whimpers Ava. A fresh channel of arousal greets Yaz’s thrusting fingers and she grounds her hips more firmly into the pressure until she’s all but riding her. Yaz’s chest constricts and she gasps hotly against a hard nub. “Yaz —  _ YazYazYazYazYaz…” _

“It’s okay, baby. I can feel you. I’ve got you,” Yaz encourages, thumbing at her clit in figures of eights and lifting her head so she can witness her ascension to grace. 

Yaz’s name stuck fast to the tip of her tongue, Ava  _ howls _ through her climax. 

All at once, every light in her apartment jitters and hisses between functions. The balcony doors sweep open and the curtains billow with a flourish and Ava comes  _ hard _ around Yaz’s unflinching fingers. Her wings are spread to their full extent, the tips of which brush Yaz’s bedroom walls. 

“I’ve got you,” Yaz murmurs against the thumping pulse she can trace south to the hand still tucked between her girlfriend’s thighs. 

When Ava finally regains control over her trembling limbs, she slumps against Yaz’s shoulder and moulds into her lap with a quiet moan. 

Slipping her fingers free, Yaz doesn’t hesitate to grant herself a greedy taste. 

It just so happens to occur in time with Ava lazily lifting her gaze. 

Biting back a whimper, Ava watches her with wild eyes and parted lips. 

“So good,” Yaz purrs, licking her lips once each digit is lapped clean. She loops her arms around her hips and presses a kiss to the corner of her open mouth. 

“Fuck.”

“Just did. How was it?” 

Ava rolls her eyes but leans into her affectionate kisses, toes curling into the sheets. “Amazin’. I can’t feel my wings.”

The wings in question flutter with aftershocks while they fold back against Ava’s shoulders. Yaz cards a hand through her feathers and revels in the soft rumble Ava grants her. 

“I should probably…” Ava pauses to drop her forehead to Yaz’s when she scratches at the underside of her plumage. “I should probably close the door. It’s a bit cold, isn’t it?”

Tapping the curve of her backside, Yaz snickers. “Be quick. We’re not finished yet.” 

“No, we definitely are not.” Flashing a hungry grin, Ava disappears in a flurry of malting feathers. It takes a single blink for her to return to the bed, door closed and locked. Curtains drawn. She even had the time to turn another light on in the corner of the room. 

Yaz shakes her head at the woman settled atop her thighs. “Show off.”

“Does that mean you’re impressed?” quips Ava. 

The admission comes forward with ease. Yaz cups Ava’s cheek and sighs when Ava nuzzles into her palm like a curious feline. “I’m always impressed by you.”

Softened but no less dark, Ava’s pupils gleam. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Hope this next part doesn’t disappoint, then,” Ava remarks, glaring at Yaz’s remaining underwear as if it has personally vindicated her. “Could you —” 

The rest of her sentence is swallowed down in a gulp when Yaz drags her sports bra over her head and jostles Ava from her lap to slip free of her lacy briefs. 

With a muted growl, Ava nudges her knees apart and claims the space between her legs. She takes her in wordlessly, bold eyes barely blinking for fear of missing a detail.

Yaz takes a single shaky inhale in the time it takes for Ava to mould both hands to her chest and indulge in something she’s clearly been pining after. Like a horny teenager, Ava squeezes and gropes and  _ gazes _ upon her breasts with her bottom lip caught between her teeth and a series of gruff noises caught in her throat. 

“ _ Christ _ , Yaz.” 

A blue spark licks at the bud of her breast and Yaz arches her back, keening for more. 

“Sorry,” Ava murmurs, eyeing her hands. “Can’t always control it.”

Yaz reaches between them to raise her girlfriend’s chin. Her knees part further and Ava doesn’t even  _ try _ not to look south of her toned stomach. “So, don’t.”

The full-bodied shiver Ava’s body trembles with doesn’t go unnoticed by Yaz, who slips her hand into her hair and scratches at the back of her head. However, if Ava doesn’t do anything soon, she might just have to take things into her own hands (quite literally). “Ava —” 

The thought must cross Ava’s mind, too, because she maintains her handsy appreciation while she shuffles back to flop down on her stomach between Yaz’s legs. Her wings curve to brush her shins and Ava glances up with the kind of hunger she usually reserves for baked goods. 

“Can I taste you?” Ava purrs, nosing at the inside of her thigh like the apex of her legs is sweet, sweet pollen to a worker bee. She takes a slow, trembling inhale through her nose and Yaz  _ watches _ the shift in her pupils to an even darker, richer colour; hears the low growl in her throat. She’s like an eagle with a wild hare caught in its talons; like a predator cruelly waiting out its killing blow. “ _ Please _ , Yaz. I need this.” 

“Thought you’d never ask,” Yaz answers breathlessly, parting her knees further when sure hands slip beneath her thighs to grip her hips. 

If the visual of Ava losing her mind over just the  _ scent _ of her wasn’t already enough, when Ava holds her gaze throughout her first few testing laps, Yaz has to bite down on the side of her hand to silence a soft cry. 

“You taste like spring,” is the last thing Ava murmurs before she maps her out under her tongue like an archeologist searching for lost treasure. Her flushed cheeks, dark eyes and constant string of gruff hums and purrs set Yaz ablaze, not to mention the adept pin-pointing of her attention where Yaz craves it most. 

In no time, she finds her stride. Yaz should’ve known she’d be a quick learner. 

But, as a hot tongue sinks past drenched folds and curls inside her, the sudden jolt of energy to follow makes her squirm with a cry. 

“ _ Fuck _ ,” Ava murmurs against her, glancing up with glistening lips and wide eyes. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—” 

“Do that again.”

“Wh—” 

“Ava,” Yaz claws her fingers through her hair and guides her back to the heat between her thighs. “Do it again.  _ Please _ .” 

Ava doesn’t need any more encouragement. Eager and hungry, she tucks back in with a satisfied growl. She sinks her adept tongue past her entrance and flicks her gaze north at the same time as another short, sharp current greets Yaz’s walls and sets her loins aflame. 

Scraping clipped nails against her scalp, Yaz whimpers out what sounds a lot like Ava’s name. She pitches into her hot mouth and presses the heel of her foot against a solid shoulder. “Oh my  _ God _ .” 

Gruffly, Ava purrs into the depths of her, wings extending and flattening while she loses herself to her dedicated task. Between steady laps and thrusts of her tongue, she slips a hand around from her thigh to thumb at her clit with pin-point accuracy. 

“Good?”

“ _ Fuck _ .”

A delighted snicker thrums within her slick walls. 

Yaz’s hand tightens in blonde locks and she earns herself a whimper from Ava’s throat. “Keep going.”

“Hotter? Colder?” 

Between the valley of her breasts, Yaz seeks her girlfriend out in dazed surprise. “You can —” 

“I can alter my biology, remember?” Ava quips between steady laps and circles of her thumb. 

The sight alone is too overstimulating for Yaz, who tips her head back with a breathy, “hotter, please —  _ ah _ — and could you —  _ fuck _ — could you make it—” 

“Thicker?” Ava growls against her; inside her; scorches the words into her sensitive flesh. “Gotcha.”

After a quick glimpse up to double-check, Ava hooks Yaz’s thighs more securely over her shoulders. Head tilted northward, Yaz doesn’t have time to react when a suddenly solid, burning tongue teases at her entrance. It wriggles inside her like a hot knife through butter, dizzying flares following in its wake. 

A low, breathy noise falls from Yaz’s throat when Ava starts up a series of steady thrusts once more, her thumb catching her clit with every impulsion. 

Her altered tongue reaches unnatural depths and it doesn’t take long until Yaz is arching up into her eager mouth with pitching pressure in her gut. 

Tangling her fingers into her girlfriend’s hair, Yaz chases her tongue with her hips. “Ava…”

A solid arm finds Yaz’s hips in seconds, keeping them pinned to the bed while she maintains her attack with a triumphant grin. 

“ _ C’mon, Yaz _ ,” a voice in her head croons, and Yaz can only shoot wide eyes south before a flare ignites the pit of her stomach and she catapults into the most superior of blissful retreats. 

Contorting and writhing against Ava’s pinning arm, Yaz throws her head back against her pillow with a soft cry. Her heart thuds like a drum in her ears and her overstimulated nerves raise goosebumps to every inch of her exposed skin. 

But it doesn’t stop there.

Burgeoning on her assault on Yaz’s senses, Ava barely takes a breath to groan before diving right back in like a vampire to a pulse. 

Closing her thighs around Ava’s head only to have them peeled back and gripped tight, Yaz whimpers for the first time in her bedded life.  _ “Fuck,  _ Ava _. _ ” 

“You taste amazin’,” Ava purrs against her, swapping her tongue out for her fingers. The second her mouth makes contact with her clit, a spark renders Yaz’s lungs frozen and her muscles taut once more. 

“ _ Ava _ …” Yaz pants, teetering on the dizzying edge. “ _ AvaAvaAvaAva _ ….” 

“Give it to me.” Ava flits her tongue over her clit, around it, sucks it into her mouth with an obscene noise, like she’s toying with her. “Please, Yaz.” 

And — really — she can’t deny her after that. 

With trembling thighs and a breathless moan, Yaz comes for a second time. 

Then a third, when Ava buries three fingers to the knuckle and crooks them in a perfect come-hither motion. Amongst the aftershocks, Yaz drags her girlfriend up to her level and clings to her shoulders with heaving lungs and sweaty, clammy skin. 

When Yaz drags her in for a kiss fuelled by musk and salty sweetness, Ava tenderly glosses over her sensitive clit with two fingers as if she just can’t help drawing a fourth, shuddering orgasm from her tired muscles. 

“ _ Oh _ ,” Yaz breathes into her mouth, jaw slackening enough to prove their kiss futile. She rides the waves until the shore, where she slumps in exhaustion against the dishevelled sheets and loosens her cloying grip on pale skin. 

Stealing the opportunity offered, Ava ducks her head to kiss along her jaw to her ear and seek out her scent like an addict craving a fix. When she finds it, she releases a grumbly sigh and nestles her nose against it in contentment. Her damp fingers rest against the inside of Yaz’s thigh, twitching with every inhale of her. 

“Christ, Ava. You really don’t do things by halves, do you?” Yaz murmurs gruffly, letting her fingers find home in Ava’s feathers just to relish in the purr she emits. 

“Does that mean you’re impressed?” hums Ava, peeling back just to catch her eye in proud giddiness. “If not, I wouldn’t mind going down on you aga—” 

“Ava, I think I’d pass out if you did that again,” Yaz laughs, following the bumps of Ava’s spine south until she reaches her hip and squeezes. “That was — just —  _ wow _ . Are you  _ sure _ you haven’t done that before?”

“I think I’d remember something like that, Yaz.” Ava readjusts, slipping down beside her and opening her arms. And her wings, of course. Her gaze drops south when Yaz slinks up against her, securing a thigh between her legs in lazy intimacy, nose twitching. “Are you  _ sure _ you don’t want even just one more—”

“ _ Babe _ .”

“Okay,” snickers Ava, touching their noses together and planting a kiss on the corner of her mouth. “Tomorrow?” 

“ _ Ava _ .”

Yaz swallows back Ava’s laughter in a languid kiss but it still sticks fast to the inside of her ribs and the edges of her consciousness like a gift wrapped up in a bow — saved for days when the rain falls a little too hard overhead and the clouds are thick with misery.

And she thinks,  _ perhaps I could stay here for the rest of my days _ .  _ Perhaps we could hold each other like this until someone uncovers us in a millennia to come, bathed in faded feathers and embraced in adoration. Perhaps we’d lay undiscovered; a secret amidst exposition, in the quiet and peace offered by no other solace than our own company.  _

Then Ava cups her cheek and wraps a tentative wing around her shoulders, pinching her brows as if trying to read her. 

And Yaz smiles; a gleaming, glorious thing, and touches their lips together with a whispered, “I love you _.”  _

And Ava murmurs it right back with all her heart. 

It’s a heavy thing, Ava’s heart, but Yaz has never felt so light under its weight. 

* * *

“Ava?” Yaz whispers on the edge of consciousness an unknown amount of time later. They’ve shifted in position, and Yaz admires the backs of Ava’s bare shoulders when she stretches with a yawn — but more so the heavy wings smoothly bonded to her skin. 

“Mm?” hums her girlfriend, turning her head with cloudy eyes to seek her out. 

Touching her fingers to the joint, Yaz knits her brows. “Are all Gallifreyans born with wings?”

After a slow inhale through her nose, Ava seemingly overcomes an internal debate and rolls over to face her properly. She takes Yaz’s hand and sandwiches it between both of her own, breathing warmth upon her cool skin. 

“Only the children of the lords are  _ born _ with wings. For everyone else, it’s more of a process, from what I can remember. Something about an academy and training, like you had to  _ earn _ them.” 

“Were you? Born with wings, I mean?”

“I… honestly don’t know. I can’t remember. It’s all a bit foggy, up here.” She taps a finger to her temple with a sheepish smile, then averts her gaze in a rare show of apprehension Yaz can read from a mile off. 

Tilting her head, Yaz grants her the moment’s solace she seeks, but her curiosity doesn’t fade. “There’s something more, though, isn’t there?”

Ava sighs, a pointed ear twitching and disturbing her hair from its place. “There’s this thing — this  _ ability _ — that the lords have, and it’s how the other Gallifreyans gain their wings.” 

“Like a  _ spell _ ?” Yaz laughs, but it falters when Ava winces. “Wait — you can cast —” 

“No,” mutters Ava, snickering at the shock coating Yaz’s expression. “It’s not like that. It’s more like — like an  _ energy _ . Like —” 

“Like that golden energy you used the night we first met? From here?” Yaz’s fingers find Ava’s cheek and she graces her thumb over a glittering freckle, dispersing the dust only for it to return to normal right away as if untouched. 

But if it’s the same energy used to grant wings, then— 

Wide-eyed, Yaz blinks at her. “Wait — does that mean —” 

Somehow, Ava simultaneously looks anxious and hopeful, all in the same tight-lipped smile. “Yeah,” she surmises, then suddenly frowns with her brows. “Well, I mean — I’ve only tested it out a couple of times, so I don’t  _ actually _ know the extent — but if I can do it in the first place, that should mean  _ something _ , right?” 

“Whoa.”

“...Yeah.”

“That’s… big. That’s a big deal, Ava.”

“It is.” 

“Have you thought about maybe trying it on m—” 

“I — yes. I have. Every day since I found out.” 

Yaz swallows hard, gaze flitting between both of Ava’s amber eyes. “This could change everything, babe. We could — we could do so much. This is huge.” 

Wetting her lips, Ava tucks closer until her feathers brush Yaz’s shoulder. Instinctively, Yaz reaches out to flatten her dishevelled plumes.“It is. And it’s not something to be taken lightly, Yaz, as much as I want it.”

“You’re not the only one.” 

The momentary stardust gathering at Ava’s fingertips is blown away and dispersed into the sheets, where Yaz tracks it into non-existence. 

“I’d still like you to think about it first, Yaz.  _ Really _ think about it. I don’t want this to be a split second decision.” 

Yaz sighs through her nose, drawing Ava’s frowning face closer to smooth out the lines gracing her forehead and the corners of her eyes. “But you’re — you’ve said it yourself that you feel so alone out here.”

“Not with you. Never with you.”

“But—” 

“Yaz, I love you. That’s a pretty big thing for me — and it’s enough. You’re enough, like this. I’m going to stick by you either way.”

Ava’s next blink lets loose a silver, metallic tear. Yaz catches it under the pad of her thumb and hushes her gently. 

“I don’t want to risk you by being selfish. I’d rather have you like this than not at all. You’ve  _ got _ to know that.”

“I do, babe.” Yaz wipes another glistening tear away and draws Ava’s face against her neck, knowing well enough by now that her pulse and her natural scent are enough to calm her. “We can talk about this, though, right? Because I’m serious when I say it’s something worth considering.” 

“Of course,” murmurs Ava, nosing at the glands beneath her jaw and inhaling greedily. “You’ve just got to promise to take everything into account first, Yasmin. You have a whole family. It’ll be pretty hard to disguise this kind of thing from them.” 

“Do you get to pick the colour?”

“Wh—”

“Of your wings? Do you get to pick the colour?” 

“ _ Yaz _ .”

“What?”

“Now you’re just being silly.”

“Made you smile, though, didn’t it?” 

“Shut up.”

“D’you reckon I could get rainbow ones?”

“Yasmin, go to sleep. You’re going loopy with exhaustion.” 

“You’re right. If anyone were gonna’ have rainbow wings, it would be you, wouldn’t it?”

“ _ Sleep _ , fledgeling.”

“ _ Fledge—” _

“Shush.” 

“Ava.”

“...”

“ _ Ava _ .”

“Yasmin.”

“I love you.”

“... Oh. I love you, too.”

* * *

Cast in shadow against the wall opposite their entwined forms, the rise of Ava’s stretching wings catch Yaz’s eye when she yawns in sleep. 

In the dark, they could be mistaken for her own distinct plumage. 

With a hankering sigh, Yaz watches them settle back as if into her own bare shoulder blades until one sweeps over her and steals her from the rest of the room. 

Ava tugs her closer with a needy hand and murmurs groggily into her ear. 

“Okay?”

“Okay,” hums Yaz, casting one last longing glance towards their shadows before closing her eyes to the low light. “Go back to sleep, babe.”

“We’ll talk tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow.” 

“Goodnight, fledgeling.”

Yaz laughs, pressing her lips to her forehead and wrapping her up in her arms for safekeeping. “Goodnight, Ava.” 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!!! comments and kudos are super appreciated! <3


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